It is not uncommon for me to either stumble into or deliberately locate great books from earlier times which I should have read when they were new. "Field of Vision" by Kirk Judd has now joined that ever growing list of such books. This was published in 1986 by Judd which was considerably after he had published poetry in numerous magazines especially in the Appalachian arena. The book contains about forty poems and about half of them had been previously published in a variety of magazines. I have previously written about Kirk Judd's most recent book of poetery "My People Was Music" which contains much of his later works and some of his earlier. I liked that book a great deal and I have to say I like "Field of Vision" even more. It is a widely varied collection of poems covering a plethora of areas of human existence. In some ways, it is a book of poetry by a young, vibrant, man who still has been able to avoid quite of a few of life's disappointments. But it also contains the poems "DOA (Sparky's Song)" and "The Death of Her Son" which are about some of those great disappointments even if the latter poem discusses the experience of another, a grieving mother. "The Death of Her Son" contains the powerful lines:
"She felt him rise to leave
and through her tears
she saw him
and loved him
and finally
let him go."
In an entirely different vein, "Visitin' Charleston" tells the story in well written lines about taking a trip to the city to throw a drunk and eat breakfast in the bus station "...with steam comin' off your shoulders and nobody wantin' to get within ten feet". Only young man who has thrown such a drunk can accurately and poetically describe one. And, of course, as I have learned from reading two of Kirk Judd's books, he must write about the great outdoors and his love for it in poems such as "Morning High Meadow" which contains the beautiful lines "hanging dropping dew to webs and silver threads and grasses green and golden". This is a complex book of great poetry which leaves no doubt that Kirk Judd is a complex man and was complex even in those formative years in which parts of this little jewel were written. But if you feel that you need a further recommendation for the book, simply read the back cover blurb from Pulitzer Prize Winner Gwendolyn Brooks in which she describes Kirk Judd's poetry as "...delightfully amazing and rash and impudent..." What further recommendation could you need, if you can still find a copy of this 1986 publication as I did?
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