A Conversation with Maurice Manning

An Interview by Ben Palpant | Words Under the Words No. 5

This post belongs to a series of interviews between Ben Palpant and important contemporary poets.

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Once and it wasn't the only time,
I was alone with being alone,
but luckily, I must have been seven
or eight, so I got started young
on poetry and all of that.

—from "Southern City Poem, Early 70's" by Maurice Manning

I sat in on Maurice Manning's poetry workshop before our interview. It didn’t take long to notice that he is one of those teachers who keeps trying to rope his students back from distraction, from their phones and laptops, with no guarantee of their attention. He did so repeatedly, kindly, often humorously, walking around to peer over their shoulder while they read their work or simply inviting them by name to offer something to the conversation. It struck me, while I was sitting there, that this is what Maurice (pronounced Morris) Manning does in his poetry, too. He kindly, often humorously, ropes his readers back from daily life's distractions, whatever those distractions might be. 

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Before we begin the interview, he gifts me a recent publication of his poetry by Larkspur Press. I thank him and note the small volume's loveliness—its paper, binding, and print quality. 

He says, "The man who runs Larkspur Press is named Gray Zeitz. When he was a young man, this is what he wanted to do and he's been doing it for about fifty years. He operates a letterpress where all the letters are set by hand. He's got a big ol' machine that weighs a ton. He's so highly regarded that there are book collectors who will buy a copy of every book that he makes."

"I can see why," I say. Then, turning it over in my hands, I read his Author's Note aloud: "I began writing this during Lent of 2015 and during that season I determined that I no longer wish to think of any human being as my enemy." I look at him. He smiles. 

"Your resolve must have been tested awful fierce during the last few years," I say.

"Well, I'll tell you, we live near the site of the largest Civil War battle in Kentucky called The Battle of Perryville. A friend of mine told me a gory tale of when he was a boy in the early 1950's, his parents were renovating a really old house. An old man came by and said he lived in that house during the battle of Perryville and one day some soldiers came by with a wounded man on their horse. The soldiers asked if they could leave him with the family and his family obliged. The man had lost an arm and leg in the battle. They put the soldier up in the loft where he bled to death. That was the state of things. Nothing to do for the wounded, but drop them hither and yon while you're running for your life. In the summer of 2015, I found part of a cannonball in my backyard. Finding the cannonball confirmed those local stories. So, you know, I started thinking about that. Of course, at that point in our country's history, we were marching toward 21st-century division. I had a realization—I wouldn't call it an epiphany—I would just call it a moment of clarity. I thought, why do we do this? Why do we divide ourselves? Does any good come of it? And I couldn't think of it?"

"A bit like the old-time family feuds that you write about, but on a larger scale," I say. 

"Yes," he replies. "Much larger and much more is at stake. I think when we divide ourselves, everyone loses eventually. There might be a victor and a loser for awhile, but we can't stay in that state. I find that very compelling."

"Maybe you could unpack that a little more," I say. "I'm thinking of your farm, for example, a place you love and want to tend well. You are encroached upon by wild animals or invasive species of plants. You want to create a space that is healthy and protected. How do you see that as different from unhealthy division?"

"Difference does not have to mean division, you know. In our woods, we have an American Horn Beam tree growing next to a Sugar Maple. They're different, but they're growing out of the same soil. On the other hand, I didn't fence off my garden last year. As a consequence, the deer ate it all. This year, I'm going to put up a fence." 

"I'm sure you will," I reply.

"The deer will have plenty of other things to eat." He pauses. "I'm not trying to evade the question, but I think we impose artificial divisions. I don't know if those divisions actually, legitimately elevate one characteristic, one difference over another."

"You're recognizing differences, but you're pulling back from a need for a hostile response to those differences. Is that it?"

"Yes, exactly. If division is based on hostility, then it doesn't serve anyone."

"There are differences between you and your students. You strike me as a teacher who walks alongside his students, who tries to fight for them, tries to ward off the assault of their distractions. Do you see yourself in that position?"

"I would say that it's something I have had to adapt to. I've been teaching for 24 years. When I first started teaching, I thought the content was inherently valuable and I wouldn't have to prove its value to anyone. In more recent years, however, I've realized that what I must do is much bigger. In some ways, I'm in a position to help my students make connections and feel connected, to help them feel rooted in a society that is rootless. I can't fault them for their rootlessness, but I can pass along the value of connection and of accepting differences without flying off the handle."

"Actually being able to talk about those differences in a healthy discourse is becoming a rare thing these days."

"Indeed."

"Speaking of being rooted, your poetry is very rooted in Kentucky. Is that a conscious choice? Or is it the consequence of being generationally rooted in Kentucky?"

"I just don't think I could do it any other way. I mean, I won't write about riding a subway because I don't ride on a subway. It's not part of my daily experience. One of the things that I have felt very lucky about is that for me, Kentucky is multiple things at once. By using Kentucky as a lens, I can look at aspects of human experience that go far beyond these geographical borders."

"Basically, you're telling me that I'm asking an apple tree why it chose to bear apples rather than pears." 

"That's well said," he says, laughing. "It's still a useful question. I mean, someone was asked once whether he was a regional writer and he said, well, isn't everyone? I mean, this is what you've got. This is what you've been given to write about."

"Faulkner once said, ‘I discovered that my own little postage stamp of native soil was worth writing about and that I would never live long enough to exhaust it, and that by sublimating the actual into the apocryphal I would have complete liberty to use whatever talent I might have to its absolute top.’ Do you feel similarly?"

"I do indeed. I'm reading Faulkner right now. You know, I would never compare myself to Faulkner, but he's certainly someone I've learned from. Some of my books are full of personal experience in the here and now reality, but I've always been very interested in going beyond the material elements, moving toward a kind of mythology. Often, my poems have one foot in reality and one foot in the beyond. Part literal and part metaphorical."

"Let's talk about the mythology, the apocryphal nature of your poetry. One of my favorite attributes of your work is a kind of old-time, Daniel Boone, Paul Bunyan, mythologizing of people who are really quite ordinary. Are those poems your attempt to honor some transcendent essence that goes unnoticed, something like what Gerard Manley Hopkins called an object's inscape?"

"I think I'm interested in the potential value of revisiting an experience that we thought about in one way and then, later, with the passage of time, we thought about it with greater significance. With the passage of time comes a dawning of a moment's significance."

"Is it fair to say that you're a gardener of memory, that you love to tend memory and see what blooms out of that soil?"

"Yes, that's a wonderful way of looking at it."

"You've shared that poetry wasn't part of your childhood. When did poetry woo you? I mean, if someone from the future had visited ten-year-old Maurice Manning and told him that he would one day be Writer in Residence at Transylvania University, the kid would have probably scoffed."

We laugh together and Manning says, "Well, listen now, you are correct, but let me tell you about this ink pen that I use." He removes the pen from his shirt pocket. "This belonged to my great grandmother who was the only person in any part of the family who read books. She wrote letters and postcards very dutifully. I often stayed with her. I remember she had this junk drawer and a pen in that junk drawer with no ink, but I would take that pen and I would take paper and make the action of writing even without ink because I associated writing with being serious and kind because it was connected to my great grandmother who was serious and kind. Many years later, I was at a writing event. I was taking notes with a drugstore pen and a fellow author, Claudia, leaned over and she said, 'Don't you think you deserve to write with a more serious writing instrument?" 

We laugh.

"I thought to myself, okay, I'll have to take that under advisement. Her admonishments brought back the memory of this pen and I told her about my grandmother's pen. Well, a couple of weeks later, I received a package from Claudia and inside is a ballpoint version of this exact pen. She had no idea, of course. And so I called my mother to see if we had any of great grandmother's things and, sure enough, among her belongings was this pen. So I bought some ink and filled it and I've been using it ever since."

"Has the pen, the fact that it belonged to your great-grandmother, changed your interaction with your poetry while you write?"

"Yes, it's made me value the privilege of writing much more."

His story jogs my memory. "I have my great grandfather's carpentry pencil," I say. "It's just a stub. It was a stub when it was given to me. But what a strange feeling to realize that I'm deeply honored to have this thing that isn't special apart from the fact that it belonged to my great-grandfather. Maybe that's an appreciation gained with age."

Manning nods. "Think of all the work he did with that pencil," he says. 

"And I think of his spirit that chose to pick up the pencil and use it to build something," I add. "It's not just about the pencil, it's about what that pencil represents. I want the same, persistent spirit in my work."

"Indeed."

"You came to fatherhood late in life, which is its own joy and terror."

"Yes, yes it is." He laughs.

"How has that experience shaped you as a poet? What has that little lady done to you?"

"Lots. I feel time more acutely, you know. She'll be relatively young when I die. I won't be there to guide her or comfort her or be an actual companion to her. The books have the potential to be a companion to her, I suppose. It's very likely that my little girl will know me more through my writing than through actual interaction with me. That thought is almost too overwhelming to consider for very long. She's a gift."

"Does it add urgency to writing poetry?"

"No. I don't feel any rush. Probably the worst thing you can do as a poet is rush. It usually doesn't go well."

"Your little girl is going to grow up in a politically charged climate. How do you see poetry serving her and others who might feel awash in conflict, anxiety, the unknown?"

"Most people have the opportunity, at least at some point in their life, to learn that living with frenzy is not something we have to do," he says. "There are plenty of experiences in our world that are the antidote to that. We can actually develop practices that strengthen those antidotes. I often suggest to students that they learn to identify 25 species of trees by their leaf, bark, and branch system. Then learn to do the same thing with songbirds and wildflowers. Learn their local names. I'm not suggesting that everyone become naturalists in a scientific way, in a bookish sense, but in a human way. I would like them to relate to the world around them relationally."

"When my wife and I bought a piece of land a few years ago, I found myself feeling a little bit bereft. I realized that I didn't know the plants or the flowers or the birds. I longed to have a name for these new companions. It's one thing to enjoy the quiet, being present in nature, but being able to name the plants and animals around me changes the relationship just as it does with people. I may notice that you are present with me in this room, but knowing your name changes our relationship," I say.

"You're drawing our attention to another layer of relationship," I add.

"Yes. You know for too many people, nature is the backdrop for humanity, for us. But we are integrated with it, we are totally dependent on nature, even if we don't think we are. You would think we would take better care of it. And, to go back to a previous point in this discussion, we are totally dependent upon each other as human beings. We are kidding ourselves if we think otherwise. We need each other, even if we don't like each other. There's no doubt about it."

"You grew up reading the Bible. How does your faith inform or interact with your poetry writing?"

"They definitely interact. I guess I'm hesitant to say, you know, that writing a poem is the same as praying. Writing a poem might be preliminary to praying. Passing through a poetic mood might be necessary for me to enter a time of prayer."

"Is that because the attention required to write a poem is required in prayer?"

"That's some of it," he replies. "You know, writing a poem requires language, words. For me, prayer is an effort to go beyond words."

"Something like when the scripture says that the Holy Spirit hears our groaning, that the Holy Spirit translates our wordless ache?" I ask.

"Exactly. A poem is too anchored in human reality. The spiritual effort is to  reach a spiritual reality that transcends the human and, in some ways, is inexplicable to the human mind."

"Would you say that the Christian faith of your youth runs parallel to your poetry? I'm not simply referring to Christian doctrine, it's more than that. What is their relationship?"

"Well, I was raised a Christian. I attend a Christian church. In my experience, my poetry and the Christian religion definitely run parallel. In poetry, though, I can ask questions about the religious. I can voice hesitation or skepticism. The poem can ask the question, but it can't provide the answer. Religion might be able to answer the question, but not always. You know, daily experience invites us to profound encounters that we may not actually understand. The poem can only point that out. It can't resolve anything. Poetry can highlight our dilemma, but it can't resolve what religion resolves."

"In your book of poems, One Man's Dark, you have these Job-like moments when you ask God really frank questions. These are honest interlocutions, but they don't resolve the ambiguity. It's hard to live in ambiguity, but poetry requires that a little bit."

"It does. You know, my students are pre-programmed to oppose ambiguity, but I tell them that very often the subject of poetry and even of art is ambiguous. Maybe that's one reason why we need art. It helps us encounter ambiguity in terms that deepen us."

"Your poetry leans toward the quiet beauty of things. Do you feel a need to point our eyes toward those things? I think of Wendell Berry's 'Peace of Wild Things.' Why do we find his poems attractive? Maybe it's because we live in a subway world and we long for the peace of wild things," I say.

"I've never wanted my poetry to preach," he replies. "As far as my experience goes, the quiet beauty of a natural place is soothing, but not just that. It's way more than that. It is the surest way to understand that we belong to the natural order. When I walk in the woods, I stop thinking of myself. I don't worry about anything in my immediate circumstance. In some ways, my so-called self ceases to matter in any way at all because I am fully integrated in something bigger than myself. I'm as integrated as the moss on the tree or the wild flowers perking up in the leaf matter. I find it a great comfort to sense that I belong here just as the violet belongs here."

"Okay, we've been very serious, but we should talk about your podcast. How did that come into the world?"

"Ha, alright. Let's see, it was during the pandemic that I suddenly had more time on my hands. I was aware that many people, including some of my friends, needed some laughter, so I decided to write a bunch of goofy poems and share those poems with my friends who felt worried and threatened. In the Appalachian region there's a tradition of tall tales that's called Jack tales. The characters are larger than life and the events are completely outrageous, but they're presented as if they're totally normal. So I wrote a bunch of these Jack tales. I found out there was state arts council funding available and I applied for it. Though I had never heard a podcast before, I told them I was going to make a podcast. So my friend—a man who understands the technology involved—and I started 'The Grinnin' Possum Podcast.' It's a bit of a local idiom. The possum is a bit of a trickster in Appalachian folklore. We did ten episodes and eventually we started traveling the state to record episodes at interesting locations, now with live audiences. We recorded one of these episodes at an old church called The Old Mud Meeting House. It's a church built in the 1800's. The acoustics are the most interesting I've ever heard. We added a fiddle player and a mandolin player. Each episode has a goofy poem or two, a couple of old-time songs, and a little bit of the local history. Honestly, it doesn't feel like we're performing. It feels like we're enjoying something together as a community."

"Humor pervades your work. It's often subtle in your poetry, but in this podcast, it's overt. Would you say that humorous poetry is a cathartic release for you? Or is it the little boy inside who keeps coming out?"

He laughs. "It's more the latter. I know that the present circumstances of the world are grim, but I can't help but find humor. I love to laugh. I love cutting up with other people. Sometimes it doesn't take other people, I'll just do it on my own." He laughs again.

"Okay, final question. How would you conclude the following: Dear Poet... Your answer is quite open. You could address dead poets, living poets, even poets not yet born."

"Alright, I guess I would say, dear poet, I hope you recognize that what you do is a privilege and I hope you enjoy it. Enjoy the work."

"Whether it gets published or not."

"Correct. Appreciate what you do for what it is."

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Afterward, while I'm filling my gas tank, the celebrity on the gas pump television screen gives me wellness tips between advertisements. She tells me to count my ha, ha, ha's. For a moment, I think I must have mistaken her. Then, a minute later, she says it again. My hearing, it turns out, is fine. 

Here I am in a world bombarded by noise, a world drowning in anxiety. It's a world full of people who need to be told to laugh because it's a healthy choice. I'm not convinced by the gas station television screen, and I'm not sure anyone else is convinced, either. We long for something much deeper than a simple laugh count, certainly something deeper than a sitcom laugh track. We long for people like Maurice Manning who can show us what it means to take the soil, the air we breathe, the trees of the field seriously. To take each other seriously, so seriously that we can laugh—the spontaneous overflow from a seriously grateful heart.  

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Ben Palpant is a memoirist, poet, novelist, and non-fiction writer. He is the author of several books, including A Small Cup of Light, Sojourner Songs, and The Stranger. He writes under the inspiration of five star-lit children and two dogs. He and his wife live in the Pacific Northwest.

Maurice Manning was born and raised in Kentucky and often writes about the land and culture of his home. He earned a BA from Earlham College, an MA in English from the University of Kentucky, and an MFA from the University of Alabama. Manning is the author of numerous award-winning books of poetry. Manning has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and the Guggenheim Foundation. He has taught at DePauw University, Indiana University, in the MFA program at Warren Wilson College, and at the Sewanee Writing Conference. He is a professor of English and creative writing at Transylvania University.