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Wyatt Prunty

Wyatt Prunty is the author of six collections of poems, most recently Unarmed and Dangerous: New and Selected Poems (Johns Hopkins, 2000), and the critical study “Fallen from the Symboled World”: Precedents for the New Formalism (Oxford, 1990). He is director of the Sewanee Writers’ Conference.

Author

Lincoln’s Tunnel

Spring 2006 | Poetry

  Born during war, I slept by rivers, Obion, Forked Deer, and Mississippi. Before the words for those subtending powers I felt their reach. Before my father’s maps Opened all the patterns currents argue I knew the branched unfolding drift of w [...]

Last Century

Fall 2004 | Poetry

Last century we took a lot of shots
Of what we did, framing things for Look and Life
So we could see us and our lot

The Man With Change

Walks down the halls of a very old house Fingering change into octaves of time, Voices unlocking their names again To open doors and run down steps, Greeting the stranger who never returned; Stands at a window watching his breath Cloud the panes tha [...]

The Insurance Agent

He gathers at the base to take a breath, To shuffle up the attic steps And fumble with a light switch in the dark; The bare bulb glares in pendulums of light, Shadowing scattered toys and chairs, Curled photographs and wedding clothes, The storage sp [...]

The Effervescent Mrs. G.

Retainer of the bridge club win and loss. Perhaps the numbing fall is always painless Like a good block or uppercut That knocked you out. Regarding the scar of a Christmas sunset, She said there was no fear of time But there was always curiosity For [...]

From Why to How

The Brazen Face of History: Studies in the Literary Consciousness in America. By Lewis P. Simpson. Louisiana. $20.00. Lewis Simpson's The Brazen Face of History maps the American chapter of our modern fall from myth into history. Landmarks used in [...]