Elegy for the Southern Drawl: Poems

by Rodney Jones

Exulting in the speech of his native Alabama, Rodney Jones's new poems combine satire and ode, formal lament and ribald joke. James Dickey praised this poet's early work as "one of our most poignant and inescapable renditions of the agony at the historical razor's edge." Now, in his sixth book, Jones extends his emotional and stylistic range. He writes of football and feminism, of DDT and family, of crows and sex, of ink and raccoons and perpetual-motion machines. In many of these poems the southern drawl lives forever, riding on the tide of regional language, poking fun yet delighting in it.

Genres: Poetry

102 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of these poems present a great registry of emotion, from elegiac to comedic (which I think is really though to pull off successfully in a poem). The poem "Elegy for the Southern Draw" is a great example of this. (Kinda reminds me of Matthews.) Overall, he's a wonderful poem-ender.

(He's also a pretty good reader if you get a chance.)


One of my faves from Elegy ...:


Owls


Because I had not seen them in the woods until I saw them in a book
And then only a shadow darting among shadows,
I am not going to quote the silence of their wings.

And because before I ever learned the smell of a jonquil
The same essence rose from the chemical
Jonquil in fly poison, I go in confusion,

As one who got the order backwards,
Who learned marriage before sex
And punishment before crime.

A small man, happy with erasements,
Preferring the polished image to the dull thing,
I might have sat in the cold moonlight watching.

But the forests were all photographed
And the birds all recorded
When I began. Let the earth separate

My own thoughts from the gray branches to the beech.
After the owls are gone there will
Still be the owl faces in the leaves.

[Margaret Carpenter]

It is clear that Rodney Jones is a man who loves words. His enthusiasm over a right descriptive or a perfectly-timed line is palpable.
Sometimes this leads to obscurity in his poetry, but more often it feels like looking at a puzzle - every aspect must be given careful attention before it can fully be appreciated as a whole.
There was not a poem in this book that I straight-up disliked and a couple that I loved, among them being Advice and The Limousine Bringing Isaac Bashevis Singer to Carbondale.
Poetry can cause us to look at the world in a different way, to see beauty in sights which threaten to become stale. But I live in the same place geographically as Jones, yet sometimes feel that we are living in different worlds.

[lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

smart, funny dude, i love him forever

[Stephen Lamb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yesterday’s McKay’s trip provided this morning’s read, Rodney Jones’ poetry collection “Elegy for the Southern Drawl.” Like his fellow Alabamian, Andrew Hudgins, his poems have to do with heritage and Southern pride and shame — "For everyone over forty, the human / Condition is grief complicated by guilt” — and wrestling with family legacies and religion and the desire to experience the world for himself and become his own person. His evocative images are one reason I’ll be returning to this book, e.g. these bits from The Mind of the Lead Guitarist: "The darkness / is said to fall, / But he sees how somberly it rises from the fallen leaves. ...The boy has heard that music is not sound but an engraving / of silence, / That silence is defined by what precedes and follows it, / and only in this way / Do the moments differ from each other."

Here’s the opening stanza to "One Music,” which is what caught my eye when I first flipped through the book and made me want to sit with it for a while:

On one of those organ chords so flush with notes
That it brings after thirty years
Not just the salt of dancing clothes
But the sweetness of a casket’s chrysanthemums…

[Cade · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love love loved it. I am always happy to find good modern Southern poets, and Jones has the bonus of being an Alabamian! How could you not love a man that writes lines like: "Roy looked at Floyd the way a roofer/ looks at sleet. "Goddam," he said, and shook his head."

[Jennifer Fredin · Rating 3 out of 5]

poetry. The one with the books name is excellent. The rest vary from so so to quite good.

[McKinley Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not actually something to read out loud t a baby without some significant censoring, but this collection does pay homage to the bewildering contradictions of the South.

Owen’s Review: 3/5 milk bottles because dad kept skipping words and lines and whole poems as if I’m not mature or something.

[Dow · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m never not reading poetry by Rodney Jones. Just spectacular.

[Heath Creel]

The best book of poetry I’ve read in a while, truthfully

[Parker Logan · Rating 4 out of 5]

He'd be a good guy to go fishing with, maybe. Def be down to hang at a boil with him.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best American poetry books of all time.