Otherworld, Underworld, Prayer Porch [Hardcover]

[Bottoms] makes astounding leaps of both faith and doubt, and does so with insight, honesty, and flashes of angerall 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 Bottomsis 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.

David Bottoms grew up in Canton, Georgia, the only child of a funeral director and a registered nurse in a home that had only two books: a King James Bible and a book by preacher Billy Graham. In 1979, Bottoms collection, Shooting Rats at the Bibb County Dump, won the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of Amerl3¦