The Porcine Canticles

David Lee

In The Porcine Canticles, David Lee speaks in a regional vernacular that is at once accessible and compelling. He has fashioned out of the red dust of Kolob Reservoir and Paragonah, Utah a lyric tribute to the indomitability of the human spirit and to the human heart which learns first by learning how to break. These poems are wise, and funny, and sad; they are tragic in the best classical sense, poems that combine elements of the bucolic and the epic, of Chaucer and Williams and Milton.

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ISBN: 9781556592096

Format: Paperback

Jan’s Birthday

I saved seventy dollars to buy Jan a present
this time because I forgot last year
and went to town to see what I could find.
I found John and he bought a round
and I bought a round and John sez
let’s go watch the auction and we drank another beer
and got in my truck and bought a sixpack
and went. They ran a pureblood
spotted poland china sow in and John sez
that’s a good one and the man sez who’ll start this
at thirty and I felt good about remembering
Jan’s birthday and said I will and he started
auctioning but nobody bid and John sez
hope she makes you a nice hog Dave
and I told the man upstairs about Jan’s
birthday while he made out the ticket
but he didnt hear and John sez give her to Jan
and she cost sixty-four dollars and ninety-six cents
and after the beer I had thirty-eight cents left
when we loaded up that spotted sow.

I was mad and John sez give her to Jan Dave again
and he bought another beer and I drove
my truck to Woolworth’s and went in with my beer
in my hand and bought thirty-eight cents
worth of red ribbon and the lady tied a bow
and gave me a piece of paper so I wrote
For Jan, With Love and John held the spotted sow
by the leg and I tied the ribbon with the bow
around her neck while the lady watched
and said oh my god over and over
the sow screaming like hell stopping cars
and the sheriff drove up and said we had to move
because we were impeding traffic so I pinned the note
to the ribbon and said you gonna help me?
and John sez no I got work to do but you
been to college you’ll think of something
so I drove John to his truck
stole two of his beers got drunk
and hit a Piute Indian who hit me back
and a man called the sheriff who sez goddam Dave
and he sez I gotta get out of town or he’ll arrest me
and I say Ira I can’t drive I’m drunk and Jan will kill me
because it’s her birthday and Ira said goddamn Dave again
made me sit in the back with the hog
and a deputy named Melvin drove his car to my house
behind us with the red light flashing
while Ira drove me and Jan’s seventy-dollar
happy birthday present home.

About the Author

David Lee was Utah’s first poet laureate; in 2001 he was a finalist for United States Poet Laureate. He is the author of two dozen volumes of poetry, including The Porcine Canticles, A Legacy of Shadows, So Quietly the Earth, Last Call, and Mine Tailings. A former seminary student, semi-pro baseball player, and hog farmer, he holds a PhD with a concentration in John Milton. For over three decades he taught at Southern Utah University, where he received every teaching …

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Reviews

“Whether you like poetry or hate it, live in the city, suburbs or countryside, listen to Mozart or Willie Nelson or both, this is a work of art, a living, breathing wonder that you have to either read, or accept that you missed something marvelous, something that could have touched your soul.” —Spokane Spokesman-Review

“One would ordinarily consider reading about hog farming in southern Utah rather uninteresting and surely poetically uninspiring. Quite to the contrary. Tightly unified, the book reads like a good novel, and when one finishes, one is strongly tempted to turn around and start all over again.” —Western American Literature

“We find in this collection tales worthy of Faulkner’s Snopes… and praises ascendant as Christopher Smart’s.” —St. Petersburg Times

“Lee may be the best-kept secret in poetry. His work is image-rich, inventive and heartfelt. He makes a universe out of the world around him.” —Deseret News

“[The Porcine Canticles offers] rural zaniness and simple but irrefutable logic that has you laughing from the outset.” —Color Country Daily Spectrum