Overview

"Outside the Gates of Eden is a carefully sequenced collection of poems whose deepest roots are in the opening words and chapters of the Book of Genesis: How God, by simply speaking, brought things into existence; how Adam further linked mankind to creation by naming the animals; how Adam and Eve fell from a state of innocence and perfection into this world of history, death, and time - whose effects some poems depict; and how art, especially poetry with its use of linking metaphors, has a special - even heroic - role as a mode of knowing by which human beings can once again perceive and, perhaps, even move toward the wholeness, harmony, and radiance of what ""Eden"" means. In addition, this collection considers how poetry may be the way by which humankind can most fully celebrate, here and now, even in a post-Edenic world, the mystery of creation, its orderliness and beauty, its origin and end, its purposefulness, and, above all, the wonder of its merely being. Traces of the old geocentric Ptolemaic cosmos and its music of the spheres are here and there in this verse still faintly apprehended."

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9781939574343

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"Until his retirement in June of 2010, David Middleton served for thirty-three years as Professor of English, Poet-in-Residence, Distinguished Service Professor, Alcee Fortier Distinguished Professor, and Head of the Department of Languages and Literature at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana. In August of 2014, he was named the first Poet in Residence Emeritus at Nicholls. Middleton's books of verse include The Burning Fields (LSU Press, 1991), As Far As Light Remains (The Cummington Press [Harry Duncan], 1993), Beyond the Chandeleurs (LSU Press, 1999), The Habitual Peacefulness of Gruchy: Poems After Pictures by Jean-François Millet (LSU Press, 2005), and The Fiddler of Driskill Hill: Poems (LSU Press, 2013). Middleton has also published several chapbooks of verse including TheLanguage of the Heart (Louisiana Literature Press, 2003), which was cited by The Advocate (Baton Rouge) as the best book of verse by a Louisianian for 2003. In March of 2014, The Fiddler of Driskill Hill won Second Honorable Mentionfrom the Louisiana Library Association as Best Book of the Year for 2013 by a Louisianian or about Louisiana.In April of 2006, Middleton won The Allen Tate Award for best verse published in The Sewanee Review in 2005. In November of 2006, Middleton received the State of Louisiana Governor's Award for Outstanding Professional Artist of 2006. In October of 2022, Middleton was the featured poet in the annual ""A Night of Poetry With . . ."" series in New York City, sponsored by First Things. Middleton has served for over thirty years as literary executor for Alabama poet and essayist John Martin Finlay (1941-1991). Middleton was the editor, along with John P. Doucet, of a comprehensive, annotated, two-volume edition of Finlay's poetry and prose: ""Dense Poems & Socratic Light"" The Poetry of John MartinFinlay (1941-1991) and ""With Constant Light"" The Collected Essays and Reviews, with Selections from the Diaries, Letters, and Other Prose of John Martin Finlay (1941-1991). These volumes were published in the summer of 2020 by Wiseblood Books."

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