A Scrap in the Blessings Jar, a volume of new and selected poems by David Bottoms, captures the evolution of the poet's spiritual quest over the past fifty years. A native and longtime resident of Georgia, Bottoms draws inspiration from the American South, and his work examines themes related to family dynamics, the woods, animals, fishing, and music in an effort to, as he once told an interviewer, "reveal something about the hidden things of the world, the vague or shadowy relationships and connections that exist just below the surface of our daily lives." This book charts his progression from tightly wrought naturalistic narratives to works that reflect his shifting conception of the interplay between memory, the present, and the metaphysical. At heart, Bottoms remains a storyteller who employs figurative language to discover the extraordinary in the seemingly mundane, and whose poetry explores the depths of our existential condition and common humanity.

"An exquisite storyteller."--"The Southern Review"

"David Bottoms's poems just get better and better."--"The Atlanta Journal-Constitution"

"One finds here what one expects in a book of good Southern poems: clear narratives . . . evocative images, searching irony, and meditative poise." --"Library Journal"

Rooted in the customs of Southern families and peopled with undertakers, bluegrass musicians, daughters practicing karate, and elderly parents, David Bottoms' poems are generous, insightful, and lean headlong into familial wisdom. Past and present interweave with grandmothers spitting tobacco juice, ponds "filled with construction runoff," and the boyhood home-site paved over for a KFC. This is Bottoms' most personal and heartbreaking book.

From "My Daughter Works the Heavy Bag":

"A bow to the instructor,
then fighting stance, and the only girl in karate class faces the heavy bag.
Small for fifth grade--willow-like, says her mother--
sweaty hair tangled like blown willow branches.
The boys try to ignore her. They fidget against the wall, smirk,
practice their routine of huff and feint.
Circle, barks the instructor,
jab, circle, kick, and the black bag wobbles on its chain.
Again and again, the bony jewels of her fist
jab out in glistening precision,
her flawless legs remember arabesque and glissade.
Kick, jab, kick, and the bag coughs rhythmically from its gut.
The boys fidget and wait . . . "

David Bottom, Georgia's Poet Laureate, was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2009. He teaches at Georgia State University and co-edits "Five Points "magazine. He lives in Marietta, Georgia.

Easter weekend in Macon, Georgia: Connie Hotlzclaw is a good-hearted ex-boxer and small-time loser who can't keep out of trouble. He dreams of carrying his girlfriend, Rita Estes, a pretty Waffle House waitress, away to a ranch in Montana and a new start, away from the hamburger grease and petty hoods. His brother, Carl, though, has other ideas. He wants a big score, and he convinces pliable Connie to join in a kidnapping--an easy mark, a sure thing, a rich local college kid whose mother, of course, will do anything to get him back. All goes well, the boy's mother waits in a nearby hotel with the ransom money, and for a moment it seems Connie may get his dream of Rita and a Montana ranch. That's when the local mob muscles in on the job. Tommy, a murderous gangster and crazy as only a pure American product can be, brings in a couple of his strong boys to up the stakes, and a final showdown over the ransom money develops at Rose Hill Cemetery-for Connie a place of violence, death, and maybe a new beginning. In this gritty novel of loss, violence, and redemption, a distinguished American poet explores the dark world last seen in the novels of James M. Cain, where death lurks everywhere and a new beginning is always just out of reach.

A panoramic view of the state in words and images; Oglethorpe's Dream unites the award-winning photography of Diane Kirkland with the beautifully powerful writing of David Bottoms, Georgia's poet laureate. The result is a stunning portrait of the lands, waters, culture, and people of Georgia. From the sea islands to the cities, from the wiregrass to the mountain forests, Kirkland gives us a gallery of spectacular images showcasing the state in its breadth, beauty, and diversity. Marrying landscape to history, Bottoms gives voice to a people filled with courage, pain, conviction, and, above all, hope. Together they capture the natural beauty of the diverse landscape, the richness of the state's storied past, and the essence of its spirited people. ""Isn't that what you always hoped for,"" Bottoms writes, ""to find a place...and yourself in that place?"" Oglethorpe's Dream helps us all to see a place called Georgia, and there to find something of ourselves.

This valuable little book is a collection of six essays by and four interviews with Georgia Poet Laureate David Bottoms. Edward Hirsch, author of The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems, says, "This deeply considered little book-offhandedly personal, keenly thoughtful-treats poetry with the seriousness it deserves as 'the most natural vehicle of the spirit,' a quest for the divine." Dave Smith, author of Little Boats, Unsalvaged: Poems 1992-2004, says, "Bottoms writes something more like meditation than criticism and his book will pleasure long and well the most discriminating as well as the amateur reader."

This is an anthology of irreverence and humor in the hands of our best poets. Can serious poetry be funny? Chaucer and Shakespeare would say yes, and so do the authors of these 187 poems that address timeless concerns but that also include comic elements. Beginning with the Beats and the New York School and continuing with both marquee-name poets and newcomers, ""Seriously Funny"" ranges from poems that are capsized by their own tomfoolery to those that glow with quiet wit to ones in which a laugh erupts in the midst of terrible darkness. Most of the selections were made in the editors' battered compact car, otherwise known as the Seriously Funny Mobile Unit. During the two years in which Barbara Hamby and David Kirby made their choices, they'd set out with a couple of boxes of books in the back seat, and whoever wasn't driving read to the other. When they found that a poem made both of them think but laugh as well, they earmarked it. Readers will find a true generosity in these poems, an eagerness to share ideas and emotions and also to entertain. The singer Ali Farka Toure said that honey is never good when it's only in one mouth, and the editors of ""Seriously Funny"" hope its readers find much to share with others.

A Scrap in the Blessings Jar, a volume of new and selected poems by David Bottoms, captures the evolution of the poet's spiritual quest over the past fifty years. A native and longtime resident of Georgia, Bottoms draws inspiration from the American South, and his work examines themes related to family dynamics, the woods, animals, fishing, and music in an effort to, as he once told an interviewer, "reveal something about the hidden things of the world, the vague or shadowy relationships and connections that exist just below the surface of our daily lives." This book charts his progression from tightly wrought naturalistic narratives to works that reflect his shifting conception of the interplay between memory, the present, and the metaphysical. At heart, Bottoms remains a storyteller who employs figurative language to discover the extraordinary in the seemingly mundane, and whose poetry explores the depths of our existential condition and common humanity.