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A review by richardwells
The Common Man by Maurice Manning
4.0
I've been reading and writing poetry for a long time, and the more I write, the more I wonder about the "rules." I wonder why the writers spend so much time rearranging prose into poetry. I wonder about line breaks, and rhythm, compression, and all the rest. I wonder about the old coots in colleges who haven't read a poem of value since the 1950's, or before. Then I start writing and quit wondering because I know what I'm after. Or I start reading, and try to be patient enough to find what I'm after. I'm not as sensitive as Emily Dickinson, so poems don't take the top of my head off, but a good poem will stop my breath, and a really good poem alters my heart beat. Forms and rules fall away to the revealed truth.
In this collection, "The Common Man," Maurice Manning has found a form and a vernacular that reveals the truth behind, and with his Appalachian characters. It's a milieu that could be easy stereotyped, or mocked, but Mr. Manning does neither, and though he may get a little too close to romanticizing the poor and uneducated, the poems contain enough native wit to keep them on track. There are poems in this collection that caught my breath, there are two or three that gave my heart a jolt. There's one, A Wavering Spindle of Forsythia, that took me out of body, back to my Pennsylvania boyhood, and that I wish I had written.
The Common Man gets four stars, verging on five. Highly recommended!
In this collection, "The Common Man," Maurice Manning has found a form and a vernacular that reveals the truth behind, and with his Appalachian characters. It's a milieu that could be easy stereotyped, or mocked, but Mr. Manning does neither, and though he may get a little too close to romanticizing the poor and uneducated, the poems contain enough native wit to keep them on track. There are poems in this collection that caught my breath, there are two or three that gave my heart a jolt. There's one, A Wavering Spindle of Forsythia, that took me out of body, back to my Pennsylvania boyhood, and that I wish I had written.
The Common Man gets four stars, verging on five. Highly recommended!