In Letters Home, the author of Lost & Found and The Chinese Poet Awakens takes us back to a time when our nation was at war.  These fifty 'story-poems,' offered as if we're hearing them casually, sitting around the living room, around the campfire, around a table at a coffeehouse, present powerful and poignant images from the writer's childhood remembrances. 
 

Author

Jeff Daniel Marion grew up in Rogersville, Tennessee and now serves as poet-in-residence and Director of the Appalachian Center at Carson-Newman College.  As poet, editor, printer, teacher, and lecturer, he has helped to create and support the literature of the region over the last three decades. 

In 1994 he was honored at the annual literary festival at Emory & Henry College in Emory, Virginia.  In 1996 he delivered the Palmer Memorial Lecture at Cumberland College and in 1998 he was named the Copenhaver Scholar-in-Residence at Roanoke College.  He lives in Knoxville with his wife, Linda.

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Reviews

"Letters Home is the most evocative memoir I have ever read. Not only does each poem stand alone in its quiet lyric intensity, but these fine poems also combine to create the story of a whole family as seen through the eyes of the young narrator, a poet-to-be—now in middle age, recapturing these lives and times through powerful images.  Marion reminds us that imagery is the straight path to the heart, to the imagination, to the gut….Jeff Daniel Marion has written a memorable, valuable book of poems." —Lee Smith

"These beautiful, wise and orderly poems reassure us that at least one person has found a sure place to stand in a world that, were we to base our opinion on a lot of contemporary poetry, stands powerless on the edge of hysteria.  This is a good book, in the deepest and trust sense of that word." —Ted Kooser

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Excerpts
 

SIGN, SOUTH PACIFIC, 1943

Weeks at sea and no mountains
rose to break that endless stretch
of horizon, blue so deep
a man could lose himself, drift
of cloud sailing wherever
wind wished. O for the anchor
of home where markers gripped true
ground. On the 37th day 
land sighted, Uncle Gene sprawled
on the beach of some unnamed
island, no sign of habitation
anywhere until he saw,
nailed to the trunk of a palm
tree, an arrow plank with words
in bold: See Rock City, 5000 miles.
There rose from that vast expanse
of sea the pastures of East
Tennessee, painted barns and
boundary trees, rocks tilled up
in spring plowing: the only
war souvenir he carried
back, this memory, like a 
compass left by an unknown
sailor on a nameless isle
whose needle pointed to home. 
 
 

DETROIT DAYS: NOVEMBER 1943

No welcome to my mother,
our basement two rooms little
better than a stall, our heat
a gas range, its oven door
left open through the night, my
father hugged himself, danced
on cold concrete floor before
leaving for work.. Welcome said
winds whistling down Great Lakes to
mountain wife hanging their one
set of bedsheets on clothesline,
sails she lifts to catch the fresh
bloom of air, let sun bleach clean
these wet flags of truce.  Welcome
said tattered rags of defeat
she carried back inside, wind
whipped and frozen. She welcomes
me onto her lap, huddles
for warmth, wonders what use words
or tears this far from home, strips
like bandages wrapping her hands. 
 
 

DETROIT DAYS: CLEANING LADY, 1944

Twice a week we go, Mother
and I, to the Stratsma's where
our world opens wider, to
row upon row of fine books
lining shelves to ceiling, rugs
rich with swirls of color, words
calling to me from spines whose
crisp letters awaken
a hunger I cannot name.
My mother lets me sit on
the plush couch, opens a book
in my lap, and I turn pages.
Wings rustle, flap as pictures
fly away like the toy in
Sasha's room—turn the crank and
stare through a peephole to see
cat chase mouse, dog chase cat, then
all are gone. I look up to
find my mother, rag in hand
rubbing the wooden shelves, stroke
by stroke to a glow, Strastma
family treasures beyond
a mountain girl's dreams, ours to
hold for this fleeting moment.
Rags to riches my mother
Mops the floor, her sweat a shine.
 
 

MILKING

Streaks of orange across the sky
but beneath the looming cedars
the yolk of morning has barely
broken: my blind grandmother squats
on the stool, bends to the task,
her hands seeking the braille
of familiar touch, Saugh, Jerz, saugh,
and the music begins—ping
of first squirts into the pail;
soon the tune of soothing liquid
vowels filling, froth rising
as her fingers squeeze these bagpipes
dry to the rasp of cow's tongue
licking last of the molasses-
rich sweetfeed from the trough,
swish-slap of tail across flank
and her refrain Saugh, Jerz, saugh.

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