RADICAL PASTORAL: A CONVERSATION WITH MAURICE MANNING

On a chilly night in November 2006, after a long cold day, we had the pleasure of interviewing Maurice Manning at his home in Bloomington, Indiana. We were joined by Manning's dogs, Deke and Larry, and his mother's dog, who he was looking after for the week. Our conversation at various points touched on Manning's books, including his second book A Companion for Owls, a volume of poems centered on the voice, character and romantic ideals of Daniel Boone, and Bucolics, Manning's newest book forthcoming in April 2007 from Harcourt. The poems referenced in the interview, which appear also in this issue of Lyric, are new work from a manuscript in progress. While the spoken portions of the interview may be of the most interest to readers, the dogs, for their part, made significant contributions to the evening, answering their own questions, in their own ways. Their frequent interjections perhaps kept us on topic more than we realized at the time, reminding us of the constant presence and unpredictability of the natural world, their animal world, in our merely human affairs. Manning is the proprietor of some acreage in Kentucky, where he was born, and, with the dogs of course, spends much of his time and energy in and on that piece of land.

Matthew Colglazier: Maurice, you own a farm in central Kentucky.

Maurice Manning: Yes.

MC: What's been going on there? What do you do there?

MM: Well, the farm has a practical value, but it also has a symbolic value. My dad grew up down in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky in a very idyllic setting, log cabin, a totally self sufficient farm. This was in the thirties; it was the Depression. There weren't grocery stores or anything like that, and various branches of his extended family lived there together. He was raised by his grandparents. In 1945, his grandfather dropped dead unexpectedly, and they had to sell the farm. And all my life I grew up hearing about my dad's childhood and being aware of how much he longed for that place and all that it meant to him. I'd always thought that one of these days I'd like to have my own piece of land. I guess ideally it'd be nice to buy back the place where my dad grew up; the farm is still there, and the whole place is fairly unchanged.

Nathaniel Perry: Someone's living there now?

MM: Yes. In fact, my family sold it to my dad's elementary school teacher's family, and she just died a few years ago. It's still in her family. My own farm is, for me, a kind of returning to something that is and was important in my family. This is the symbolic value. My dad's grandfather, who I never knew, could do everything-designed the house, built the house-and I've always admired that. He was also an attorney, so he was not the typical Appalachian stereotype. And the fact that they chose to live where they did, in the mountains, and stay-I value that too. I bought my place about five years ago, and the house on it was uninhabitable, and so a lot of what I've done is work on that house. It had electricity [. . .], but I had to upgrade it, and it didn't have indoor plumbing. But, as I said, there is a practical value to it because I like doing that kind of work. I like physical things. And there is never a shortage of physical things to do. It's just 20 acres, so it's a small farm. I appreciate also that this particular property has an interesting history. The only major Civil War battle in Kentucky was fought about seven or eight miles away, and I know there were troops coming through the area. I have a sense of what the place was like at the time. It was probably pretty similar to the way it is now, [since] it's somewhat unchanged. I like the place how it is. It's woolly. Not groomed.

MC: Do you write a lot while you're there, or do you find that you do work there and write when you are in Bloomington?

MM: That's a good question. It's sort of the latter, partly because when I'm there, I'm so busy doing other stuff. But the farm fuels everything I write.

NP: The place itself?

MM: The place and being part of a local community out there. One of the poems I gave y'all, "A Bestiary" [see page 36], has something of the community in it. I really overheard that conversation. I was getting some turnip seed, and over my shoulder two women were talking about a third woman, and one of the women said, "You know, I just don't understand why Darleen is so crazy about chickens," and the other woman said, "Well you know why, she was raised up with a rooster." [Laughter.] As if that explains everything. That was really the end of the conversation. The other woman just replied, "Oh, I see your point."

MC: Do people down there know you're a writer, or do you move in that community more as someone who lives there?

MM: Most people think I'm there all the time. When it comes up at all, I say I'm a schoolteacher in Indiana. It's easier than going into a long explanation.

NP: What you need is a way to stop them in their tracks, like saying you were raised up with a rooster.

MC: On your family's farm, when do you think you experienced your first encounter of language being somehow connected to the natural world? [The dog makes an audible whimpering sound, as if approving.]

MM: That's an early childhood thing for me. My mother didn't grow up on a farm, but her mother did, farther south in Kentucky. And like my dad's place, it was a center for the family, especially once the Depression came along. Everybody had to live there, so the relatives that I grew up with on both sides of the family all had a common source of storytelling.

MC: So your first encounter was through stories, not images.

MM: It was characters . . .

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