The Language They Speak Is Things to Eat

Poems By Fifteen Contemporary North Carolina Poets

Edited by Michael McFee

The Language They Speak Is Things to Eat

296 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 14 illus.

  • Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8078-4483-0
    Published: November 1994

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North Carolina is well known for its fiction writers, but the state is also home to a number of the nation's best poets. In the past few decades, these poets have produced memorable work and received numerous honors. A companion to the contemporary North Carolina fiction anthology The Rough Road Home (1992), this book provides a substantial sampling of their recent bounty. Poet Michael McFee has chosen from eight to twenty poems by each of fifteen poets. There is a refreshing diversity in the voices, from James Applewhite's down east tobacco farmer to Gerald Barrax's passionate urban man to Kathryn Stripling Byer's isolated mountain woman. The humor ranges from Maya Angelou's serious wit to Jonathan Williams's verbal improvisations. And there is a healthy variety in form and tone, from A. R. Ammons's free verse ruminations to Fred Chappell's vigorous, witty narratives in traditional forms. But there is also a fundamental unity to these poets. They are all North Carolina writers, who were born in or have long lived in the state, and whose verbal consciousness has been shaped by the very nature of the place. Most importantly, they are all poets we can read with appreciation and great pleasure. contributors Betty Adcock A. R. Ammons Maya Angelou James Applewhite Gerald Barrax Kathryn Stripling Byer Fred Chappell William Harmon Susan Ludvigson Michael McFee Heather Ross Miller Robert Morgan Reynolds Price James Seay Jonathan Williams

About the Author

Michael McFee has published six books of poems, including Earthly and Colander, and is editor of This Is Where We Live: Short Stories by 25 Contemporary North Carolina Writers. He teaches creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
For more information about Michael McFee, visit the Author Page.

Reviews

"Editor Michael McFee, working with the University of North Carolina Press, has done an admirable job of gathering and sifting the abundance of excellent poetry from a state whose literary bounty has long been as inexplicable as it is refreshing."--Southern Humanities Review

"Cheers to Michael McFee and the University of North Carolina Press for letting these voices be heard."--Raleigh News & Observer

"This is a wonderful collection of many years of serious work."--North Carolina Libraries

"The poems McFee has chosen are not arcane, esoteric, nor self-involved, and though some are demanding they are still accessible, which means they begin immediately to yield delight that increases upon further reflection and study."--Georgia Review

"This 'bouquet' has a delightful aroma--varied, and pungent with a sense of place."--Publishers Weekly

"Adcock, Ammons, Angelou, Applewhite, Barrax, Byer, Chappell, Harmon, Ludvigson, McFee, Miller, Morgan, Price, Seay, Williams--you'd be hard put to come up with a more distinguished list, irrespective of regional roots. McFee has included what might be considered the poets' standard anthology pieces along with less well-known, but deserving, poems."--Ron Wallace, University of Wisconsin-Madison