Poems inspired by small-town upbringing made Indiana prof a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize

UPDATE, Aug. 8: Manning read to a full house as featured poet for the Holler Poets event on July 27 at Al's Bar in Lexington, Ky., Candace Chaney reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. Many Kentucky writers attended.

Poet Maurice Manning used his experience growing up in Danville, Ky., population 10,000, as the basis for his latest volume of poetry, The Common Man, that was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry. "It really was a tremendous surprise," Manning told Jennifer Brummett of The Advocate-Messenger in Danville. (Photo contributed to Advocate-Messenger)

Manning, an associate professor of creative writing at Indiana University, said he considers the poems in The Common Man as "tall tales and legends" still heavily based on his childhood in Central Kentucky. "A lot of them, I think, sort of have their genesis in stories that I’ve learned from my grandmothers," he told Brummett. "They’re tales from a world gone by, and more local in their doing and thinking and experience." He added, "In my memory, Danville had real local characters around. So it’s a little bit elegiac — implicit in the book is the acknowledgment this small community I knew growing up and was part of has changed." (Read more)

Glimpses of the book are available on Amazon.com. Poem titles include: "Moonshine," "Hey, Sidewinder," "Sowing Butter Beans with a Stick" and "A Wringer Washer on the Porch."