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| BROADSTONE BOOKS presents OCTOBER CROSSING Poems by Robert Morgan |
Paperback, 48 pages
Publication Date: September 15, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-9802117-1-9
Price: $12.50
Publication Date: September 15, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-9802117-1-9
Price: $12.50
Best-selling author Robert Morgan returns
with a new collection of poetry exploring
and celebrating the culture and curiosities
of his native Appalachia.
with a new collection of poetry exploring
and celebrating the culture and curiosities
of his native Appalachia.
| Praise for Robert Morgan and October Crossing |
| About the Author |
Photo by Curt Richter
"Any new collection of poems by Robert Morgan is a gift, and October Crossing is wonderful
through and through. In the past thirty years I have learned a great deal from this man, who is
exemplary as a poet, as a prose writer, and as a human being."
—Ted Kooser
"Robert Morgan's poems are always exciting for their precise knowledge of country things, and of
how things go in the world of natural fact and process. This new collection gives us also some
delightful lore from the Southern mountains: we learn of the horse fiddle, and holy cussing, and the
intrepid pastor who held off bear or panther with his umbrella."
—Richard Wilbur
"Forty years after the publication of his first book,Robert Morgan makes this remarkable October
Crossing. 'Beating back the blackest shadows…to the pulse of clap and laughter,' he surely earns the
collection’s final prospect: 'years ahead / as golden as the leaves on hickories.'"
—Robert West
"The best poems in October Crossing sound so fresh and strong that it is hard to believe that Robert
Morgan’s first book, Zirconia Poems, came out in 1969, forty years ago. Morgan’s distinctive voice
still sounds much the same, honest and straight, but always with new subtleties and a willingness to
move into new country. Like Thomas Wolfe and Wallace Stevens. Robert Morgan seems to own
October, and he makes the most of it, mature and original."
—William Harmon
"Morgan's 'October Crossing' returns to the landscapes and preoccupations of the North Carolina
mountains with the rich, grounded work that he does so well. Though he has taught at Cornell
University for years, Morgan has never really left Appalachia for his literary work. There's music
aplenty in Morgan's work, and his portraits not only capture the daily lives of the people of the North
Carolina mountains but always manage to get at an even larger canvas, to find the common human
story that we all share, no matter our particular location."
—Michael Chitwood, Raleigh (NC) News & Observer, December 13, 2009
"Reading familiar poems from October Crossing … is similar to seeing the chain of mountains in the
Blue Ridge in different lights: each view offers new vistas…. This is poetry written by a consum-
mate authority on the region….
"The poems … are filed with folklore, oral tradition, family stories, recorded facts, throwing a
spotlight on a region and leaving the reader more intimately acquainted with the community."
—Karen K. Mason, North Carolina Literary Review, #22, 2013
through and through. In the past thirty years I have learned a great deal from this man, who is
exemplary as a poet, as a prose writer, and as a human being."
—Ted Kooser
"Robert Morgan's poems are always exciting for their precise knowledge of country things, and of
how things go in the world of natural fact and process. This new collection gives us also some
delightful lore from the Southern mountains: we learn of the horse fiddle, and holy cussing, and the
intrepid pastor who held off bear or panther with his umbrella."
—Richard Wilbur
"Forty years after the publication of his first book,Robert Morgan makes this remarkable October
Crossing. 'Beating back the blackest shadows…to the pulse of clap and laughter,' he surely earns the
collection’s final prospect: 'years ahead / as golden as the leaves on hickories.'"
—Robert West
"The best poems in October Crossing sound so fresh and strong that it is hard to believe that Robert
Morgan’s first book, Zirconia Poems, came out in 1969, forty years ago. Morgan’s distinctive voice
still sounds much the same, honest and straight, but always with new subtleties and a willingness to
move into new country. Like Thomas Wolfe and Wallace Stevens. Robert Morgan seems to own
October, and he makes the most of it, mature and original."
—William Harmon
"Morgan's 'October Crossing' returns to the landscapes and preoccupations of the North Carolina
mountains with the rich, grounded work that he does so well. Though he has taught at Cornell
University for years, Morgan has never really left Appalachia for his literary work. There's music
aplenty in Morgan's work, and his portraits not only capture the daily lives of the people of the North
Carolina mountains but always manage to get at an even larger canvas, to find the common human
story that we all share, no matter our particular location."
—Michael Chitwood, Raleigh (NC) News & Observer, December 13, 2009
"Reading familiar poems from October Crossing … is similar to seeing the chain of mountains in the
Blue Ridge in different lights: each view offers new vistas…. This is poetry written by a consum-
mate authority on the region….
"The poems … are filed with folklore, oral tradition, family stories, recorded facts, throwing a
spotlight on a region and leaving the reader more intimately acquainted with the community."
—Karen K. Mason, North Carolina Literary Review, #22, 2013
Robert Morgan is the author of twelve books of poetry, including Topsoil
Road, The Strange Attractor: New and Selected Poems, and Groundwork.
Winner of the James G. Hanes Poetry Prize from the Fellowship of Southern
Writers and the Eunice Tietjens Prize from Poetry magazine, he has also received
the Southern Book Award for his novel Gap Creek and the Academy Award in
Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His nonfiction book,
Boone: A Biography, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and
winner of the Kentucky Book Award. A native of western North Carolina, he is a
2010 inductee into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame. Since 1971 he has
taught at Cornell University, where is he now Kappa Alpha Professor of English.
Road, The Strange Attractor: New and Selected Poems, and Groundwork.
Winner of the James G. Hanes Poetry Prize from the Fellowship of Southern
Writers and the Eunice Tietjens Prize from Poetry magazine, he has also received
the Southern Book Award for his novel Gap Creek and the Academy Award in
Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His nonfiction book,
Boone: A Biography, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and
winner of the Kentucky Book Award. A native of western North Carolina, he is a
2010 inductee into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame. Since 1971 he has
taught at Cornell University, where is he now Kappa Alpha Professor of English.
Broadstone Books congratulates Robert
Morgan on his 2010 induction into the
North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame!
Morgan on his 2010 induction into the
North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame!
