Dan Barth

The Day After Hank Williams' Birthday: Prose Pieces & Poems Dan Barth

This book is an enjoyable mix of poems and short prose pieces. There are tales hitchhiking and strange encounters, and poems about everyday objects such as bow saws and branch loppers. In the title piece the author hears Hank Williams songs running through his head as he performs a variety of household chores. The reader becomes the one hearing these songs. The natural world is explored and celebrated in poems about fishing and working outdoors. In one poem a small child invents an alternate name for flowers. In another the poet stands in awe at the birth of twin fawns. A unifying theme? All truths wait in all things. Mundane and comical occurrences can lead to insights profound and sublime.