The Moving Out: Collected Early Poems by John Morgan


The Moving Out: Collected Early Poems
Title : The Moving Out: Collected Early Poems
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 1912561425
ISBN-10 : 9781912561421
Language : English
Format Type : Paperback
Number of Pages : 206
Publication : Published June 14, 2019

John Morgan studied with Robert Lowell at Harvard and won the Hatch Prize for Lyric Poetry. He received his M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers' Workshop where he was awarded the Academy of American Poets Prize. In 1976, he moved with his family to Fairbanks, Alaska to direct the creative writing program at the University of Alaska. Each of Morgan's first three books was chosen for publication in national competitions. He has published three books with Salmon Poetry. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The American Poetry Review, The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, The New Republic, and more. He has won the Discovery Award of the New York Poetry Center, first prize in the Carolina Quarterly Poetry Contest, and has received writing grants from the Alaska State Council on the Arts and the Rasmuson Foundation. He was awarded a scholarship to the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, and a writing fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. In 2009, he served as the first writer-in-residence at Denali National Park.

The Moving Out: Collected Early Poems Reviews

  • Bonnie Brody

    Poetry is not my usual choice of reading material. However, 'The Moving Out', by John Morgan, transported me, evoking feelings and images that resonated like music in my mind. Mr. Morgan's ability to write about life's mysteries amazed me. I cannot conjure the mind of a poet but John Morgan has a depth of spirit and soul that is evident in his poems.

    These poems address the mystery of landscape, the beauty of the sensuous and erotic, the love of family alongside the fears of death and loss. As the poems speak of nurturing and love, they do not deny the grimmer aspects of being human.

    Having lived in Alaska, as did the author, I can readily understand how one can love the grandness of the arctic as well as fear its challenges. Being a mother opened my heart to the feelings of fear, love and potential loss that the author experienced when his son fell ill.

    The book is divided into several sections, each of which is a present for the reader. I have read the poems twice now and there is still much more to absorb and appreciate. The author opens his heart and exposes his frailties and strengths in a very personal way. In the author's own words, 'My happiness is sudden like a star". That is the experience I take from this book and its ultimate tribute, to life.