Description: "A Day of It, the ninth book of poems by Michael Chitwood, is a fanfare for the commonplace and the oft overlooked, both in places and people. In the spirit of Seamus Heaney, Chitwood's poetry seeks the whereabouts of the "thin places" in the everyday--an abandoned barn, a weedy roadside, even an antique sewing machine. The dwindling tobacco fields and shuttered textile mills of Chitwood's native Appalachia bring to bear both personal and historical revelations. The complicated history of the region entwines with the personal in sonically rich lyrics. This is no Appalachian elegy, but Appalachian homage. The poems in A Day of It pay people and place their greatest compliment: attention"-- Provided by publisher.
Brief description: Michael Chitwood's work has received the L. E. Phillabaum Award from LSU Press, the Chaffin Award for Appalachian Writing, and the Library of Virginia Literary Award for Poetry.
Review Quotes: "Michael Chitwood's poetry honors inventive southern folk vernacular and converses with contemporary literary greats such as Stanford and Levine--in a flawless style all his own. Many poems look back, but to read them is 'more like time being made, not passing' and you'll want to linger as long as you can in the observant stillness with which the book graces us."--Rose McLarney