Book Description

The winning volume in the 1994 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition is Living in the Resurrection by T. Crunk. As James Dickey, distinguished poet and judge of the competition, says in the foreword, "Here is that rare phenomenon, a writer of instinctive formal vision. His real reverence for the simple objects of the everyday world, their ability to present cup, tree, and hand both as they seem and as they are with a kind of mystical iconic starkness, is a quality uniquely Mr. Crunk's. That this starkness eventually begins to warp into the surreal and ultimately windows into the Luminous Beyond, is additional sanction for gratitude."Reliquaria1. Found Hand-Painted on a Tin Flue CoverRibbon of black crapedraped on a door knoblike broken stringshanging from a loomwith the words: Weep not.What do I need of this world?2. S. P. Dinsmoor Describes His TombI have made myself a coffin with a glass lid.By the door of my grave houseI have set a cement angel and a stone jug.When I see the host coming down, the lid will—fly openand I will sail out into the air like a locust.If I am called above, the angel will help me—on my way.If I have to go below, I will grab my jugand fill it with water somewhere on the road down.Meantime, every day I pray—O Lordteach me that I am but earth,a hollow vessel of clay, only a wisp of thy breath against my emptiness.3.They have yet to figure out the name of the churchtwo men diving in Barkley Lakearound Cain's Mill a few years agofound the whole steeple of cross and allhalf-buried in the mud shallows.