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"An exquisite storyteller."—The Southern Review "David Bottoms's poems just get better and better."—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution "One finds here what one expects in a book of good Southern poems: clear narratives . . . evocative images, searching irony, and meditative poise." —Library Journal Rooted in the customs of Southern families and peopled with undertakers, bluegrass musicians, daughters practicing karate, and elderly parents, David Bottoms' poems are generous, insightful, and lean headlong into familial wisdom. Past and present interweave with grandmothers spitting tobacco juice, ponds «filled with construction runoff,» and the boyhood home-site paved over for a KFC. This is Bottoms' most personal and heartbreaking book. From «My Daughter Works the Heavy Bag»: A bow to the instructor,then fighting stance, and the only girl in karate class faces the heavy bag.Small for fifth grade—willow-like, says her mother—sweaty hair tangled like blown willow branches.The boys try to ignore her. They fidget against the wall, smirk,practice their routine of huff and feint.Circle, barks the instructor,jab, circle, kick, and the black bag wobbles on its chain.Again and again, the bony jewels of her fistjab out in glistening precision,her flawless legs remember arabesque and glissade.Kick, jab, kick, and the bag coughs rhythmically from its gut.The boys fidget and wait . . . David Bottom, Georgia's Poet Laureate, was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2009. He teaches at Georgia State University and co-edits Five Points magazine. He lives in Marietta, Georgia.

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Armored Hearts, combining new poems and a selection from previous volumes, offers the power of idiomatic narrative at its naked best. «It is refreshing to read a poet who is not obliquely vague, who tells a story cleanly and convincingly, and yet who will not close down mysterious and complicated things about life that simply defy such closure.»–Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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“[Bottoms] makes astounding leaps of both faith and doubt, and does so with insight, honesty, and flashes of anger—all characteristic elements of his work.” — The Southern Review “One finds here what one expects in a book of good Southern poems: clear narratives . . . evocative images, searching irony, and meditative poise.” — Library Journal “Bottoms’ poems do what the best poems have always done: They compel us to reread them. They linger in our minds. They alter our perception of the world.” — Atlanta Journal-Constitution David Bottoms explores otherness, the death of parents, and private spirituality. Images of rural Georgia confront the changing landscape of his memories where he searches for refuge in quiet places of prayer. Rooted in nature, Bottoms’ poetry affirms the “tenuous ways tenderness seeps into the world” and the loneliness inherent in memory. Memory is “smoke off a damp fire” as Bottoms explores absence, a contemplative inner life, and changing landscapes. From “An Absence”: Yes, things happen in the cool white spaces,those moments you turn your head –the way the trembling branch suggests the owl,or the print by the pond suggests the fox.Near the end, though, only one thing matters,and nothing, not even the fox, moves as quietly. David Bottoms is the author of eight books of poetry and has received the Walt Whitman Award, fellowships from the NEA and Guggenheim Foundation, and served as Poet Laureate of Georgia for twelve years. He currently holds the Amos Distinguished Chair in English at Georgia State University.

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