Lawrence Booth’s Book of Visions (Yale Series of Younger Poets)

This year s winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition is Maurice Manning s Lawrence Booth s Book of Visions. These compelling poems take us on a wild ride through the life of a man child in the rural South. Presenting a cast of allegorical and symbolic, yet very real, characters, the poems have authority, daring, [and] a language of color and sure movement, says series judge W.S. Merwin.

From Seven Chimeras

The way Booth makes a love story: same as a regular story, except under one rock is a trapdoor that leads to a room full of belly buttons; each must be pushed, one is a landmine. The way Booth makes hope: thirty-seven acres, Black Damon, Red Dog. Construct a pillar of fire in the Great Field and let it become unquenchable. The way Booth ends the Jack-in-the-Box charade: shoot the weasel in the neck and toss it to the buzzards. The way Booth thinks of salvation: God holding a broken abacus, colored beads falling away.