A Companion for Owls : Being the Commonplace Book of D. Boone, Long Hunter, Back Woodsman, &c.

Rating:
Summary: The Real McCoy
Review: Perhaps I'm a dash sycophantic but, "A Companion for Owls" should contend for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry. The previous reviewer must have abandoned his childhood fantasies long ago, because to give one star to this new volume points to a distinct lack of imagination. If at some point in your life you have not fantasized about being a Daniel Boone, an American alone on the frontier, surviving on wits and rifle alone, I pity you. There are few characters as quintessentially American as Boone, and Manning does a superb job issuing a voice to his persona. Because Boone spent so much of his life alone, there are great oppurtunities to fashion words for him, but also great peril if too many liberties are taken with the character. We all find a precious poetry in solitude, but rarely can it be translated to the page without it being cloying or inaccessible. Manning has found that solitude, but also a rustic sympathy that makes Boone terribly inviting. This volume is not dull. It is long, but also, comprehensive. It is prayer, memory, lamentation, regret, discovery, joy, selfishness, pain, humility, nature, urban encroachment, and most of the poems are great successes. Only 2 or 3 seem superfluous or misconceived. The end notes are a true joy. If every poet included such copious notes about their work people might not find poetry so impenetrable. And if every poet wrote verses so bright and well honed as Manning, they might not need end notes in the first place.

Rating:
Summary: Boonin'
Review: The blurb on the back of this book couldn't be more opposite in its relation to Manning's most recent book. This book isn't even bad; it's dull. When Robert Lowell speaks in the voice of Jonathan Edwards or Hart Crane or some other major figure in American history, we get a full sense of both Lowell and the other voice. With Manning we get neither Manning nor Boone but a weak representation of something that might have happened to Daniel Boone. The notes are ridiculous, superfluous, or pretentious, I'm not sure. The drawings are an insult to the imagination of children.