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    Eternal Sentences
    Eternal Sentences
    Eternal Sentences
    Ebook80 pages1 hour

    Eternal Sentences

    By Michael McGriff

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    About this ebook

    Winner, 2021 Miller Williams Poetry Prize

    Michael McGriff’s Eternal Sentences bears witness to the world of gravel roads, working-class families, and geographic isolation in poems that illuminate both common occurrence and the territories of the surreal. Here, in rendering every line as a single sentence, McGriff depicts a world seen through fragments, quick leaps, and wild associations. Haunted as much by place and people as by the possibilities of image-making itself, Eternal Sentences is a song for the hidden depots of rural America.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Arkansas Press
    Release dateMar 5, 2021
    ISBN9781610757416
    Eternal Sentences

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      Book preview

      Eternal Sentences - Michael McGriff

      Miller Williams Poetry Series

      EDITED BY BILLY COLLINS

      ETERNAL SENTENCES

      MICHAEL McGRIFF

      The University of Arkansas Press

      Fayetteville

      2021

      Copyright © 2021 by The University of Arkansas Press. All rights reserved. No part of this book should be used or reproduced in any manner without prior permission in writing from the University of Arkansas Press or as expressly permitted by law.

      ISBN: 978-1-68226-162-0

      eISBN: 978-1-61075-741-6

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      25  24  23  22  21      5  4  3  2  1

      Designed by Liz Lester

      The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: McGriff, Michael, 1976– author.

      Title: Eternal sentences / Michael McGriff.

      Description: Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2021. | Series: Miller Williams poetry series | Summary: Eternal Sentences, winner of the 2021 Miller Williams Poetry Prize, bears witness to the unseen worlds of gravel roads, working-class families, and geographic isolation—Provided by publisher.

      Identifiers: LCCN 2020042490 (print) | LCCN 2020042491 (ebook) | ISBN 9781682261620 (paperback) | ISBN 9781610757416 (ebook)

      Subjects: LCGFT: Poetry.

      Classification: LCC PS3613.C4973 E84 2021 (print) | LCC PS3613.C4973 (ebook) | DDC 811/.6—dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020042490

      LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020042491

      Funded in part by

      for Dorianne Laux & Joseph Millar

      I adjust the time

      so as to pass through my life

      —Bei Dao

      CONTENTS

      Series Editor’s Preface

      Acknowledgments

      Eternal Sentences

      Solstice

      Waiting for the Heat to Break into Rain

      1995

      South Fork of Coos River

      Elk in the Field

      1987

      Cousin

      Dead Crow’s Monologue

      Mikey’s in Jail

      Sleeping beside the Alsea

      August Poem for Bei Dao

      Food Stamps

      What Gets Seen

      Campaign Promises

      Lunch Break in the Cab of My Truck

      Concession Speech

      Upriver Memory and Pinochle

      The Last Poem about the Moon

      Whale

      On the Grande Ronde

      The Evening

      Tonight I Am

      Eminent Domain

      County Clerk’s Office

      Driving by Johanson’s

      Presidio

      Westport Ferry

      1986

      Aging

      Side Work

      Ontological Tire Shop

      Idiot Tax

      Trading Places with the Moon

      Neighbors

      In the Hayloft Looking East

      A Job Up North

      Election Year

      Five Translations of Morning Light

      It’s the First Day of Burn Season

      Antonio Porchia

      Inventing the Cyclops

      Calm Seas

      A Visitation

      Self-Portrait in October Light

      Elegy for A. C. with Water and Anwar

      De Profundis

      1999

      Ambush

      No Bond, No

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