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802 Tony Crunk “Reliquaria” Tony Crunk is one of three young Kentucky poets who have won the coveted Yale Younger Poets competition in recent years. A native of Hopkinsville, Crunk earned degrees from Centre College, the University of Kentucky, and the University of Virginia. He has taught at the University of Montana and Murray State University and now teaches at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. His church-drenched Baptist boyhood in western Kentucky is the material out of which he has written an impressive collection, Living in the Resurrection (1995). In these unapologetically spiritual poems, there are echoes of familiar passages from hymns and the Bible; but these old words and images are placed in new settings that startle and illuminate. The result is a gentle, aching, restrained poetry filled with paradox and irony but no condescending satire. His people retain the dignity of vagrant yet redeemed souls this side of the Resurrection. In this poem a man carefully prepares his way into the hereafter, regardless of which way he will go. h 1. Found Hand-Painted on a Tin Flue Cover Ribbon of black crape draped on a door knob like broken strings hanging from a loom with the words: Weep not. What do I need of this world? 2. S. P. Dinsmoor Describes His Tomb I have made myself a coffin with a glass lid. By the door of my grave house I have set a cement angel and a stone jug. When I see the host coming down, the lid will fly open and I will sail out into the air like a locust. If I am called above, the angel will help me on my way. The author’s name 803 If I have to go below, I will grab my jug and fill it with water somewhere on the road down. Meantime, every day I pray—O Lord teach me that I am but earth, a hollow vessel of clay, only a wisp of thy breath against my emptiness. 3. They have yet to figure out the name of the church two men diving in Barkley Lake around Cain’s Mill a few years ago found the whole steeple of cross and all half-buried in the mud shallows. Tony Crunk 803 ...

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