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    Gravel and Hawk: Poems
    Gravel and Hawk: Poems
    Gravel and Hawk: Poems
    Ebook79 pages29 minutes

    Gravel and Hawk: Poems

    By Betty Wood

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    About this ebook

    Gravel and Hawk dwells on the physical and cultural landscapes of the Texarkana border region, an area of stark natural beauty and even starker manifestations of its human habitation: oil derricks and pump jacks, logging trucks, chicken houses, come-to-Jesus billboards, and greasy catfish joints, a patchwork of dying farm towns and ragtag municipalities laced together by county roads, state highways, and that treacherous, rust-hued slurry known as the Red River. Gravel and Hawk charts the emotional landscape of a single extended family, its history of loss and gain, and, especially, its encounters with violent death. It is an eminently readable collection, rooted in a distinctly American place and united by a poetic voice that is honest, sophisticated, and persuasive.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOhio University Press
    Release dateFeb 16, 2012
    ISBN9780821444085
    Gravel and Hawk: Poems
    Author

    Betty Wood

    Betty Wood is lecturer in history at Girton College, Cambridge University.

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      Book preview

      Gravel and Hawk - Betty Wood

      Nostalgia

      Awash in the lesser doldrums,

      out the farm-to-market, past the S-

      curves, far back from the road,

      my grandparents’ farmhouse sat

      surrounded by fields and pastures.

      A pair of catalpas separated

      from the yard a patch planted in cotton,

      soybeans, maize, gave it a tucked-in

      look it lost years later, when, after

      the house had been let go, become

      a hay barn (the barn itself become

      a pile of tin and lumber), then

      not even that, a crumbling cave-in,

      something to stand back from,

      a fallen soufflé with weeds

      colonizing the porch, pouched

      screens, catalpa stumps,

      and the front patch a blister

      of truck tire ruts where a custom

      trailer outfit had thrown up

      a metal barn to build its wares,

      done its business, and going

      defunct, left this for me

      to come back to, and left it also

      for you, reader of this

      Enjoying the preview?
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