| Abbott's New Book of Poetry Characterizes Many “Men Who…” 11/3/2005 Contact: Bill Giduz 704/894-2244 or bigiduz@davidson.edu Re-print courtesy of Davidson College Images courtesy of Davidson College |
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| You might describe Davidson writer Tony Abbott as “the man who was having too much fun to slow down.”
But it's Abbott, a retired Davidson professor who refuses to stop teaching and writing, who gets to describe others in his new collection of poetry, entitled The Man Who. In about fifty narrative poems, he writes about characters real and imagined, linking all the works with the first three words of their titles. Abbott will be reading from his new book on Thursday, November 10, at 7 p.m. in the Town of Davidson library, at Main Street Books in Davidson on December 1, and at the Barnes and Noble bookstore in Birkdale on December 13. “Every male is 'a man who,'” said Abbott, who has published three previous books of poetry and a novel. His latest collection gathers works he has been developing for the past five years. “Once I started thinking about that common denominator, I found tons of characters to write about. The titles allowed me to think and develop the poems from their points of view.” |
 Tony Abbott |
The man who shouted “Good stuff!” pays tribute to his longtime, enthusiastic departmental colleague Gil Holland. The man who writes with his eyes honors Charlotte's Joe Martin, who lives with Lou Gehrig's disease. The man who watched from the bus recalls a story from a student trip to Nicaragua. The man who died in Penn Station is the late contemporary architect Louis Kahn, whose funeral was attended by three very surprised separate families who previously knew nothing of each other. The Man Who, which is published by Charlotte's Main Street Rag Publishing Company, consists of four sections, beginning with universal themes and proceeding toward personal stories. The opening set of universal poems considers characters faced with spiritual and religious dilemmas. The man who fears death is contemplating his future, and wondering if God exists. The man who fell among thieves is a lesser-known character in the parable of the Good Samaritan. The man who knew Jesus suffers from guilt over his inability to follow the prophet fully. The second section of poems describes Holland, Martin, and other characters. It also includes the man who helped blind people bowl, and what happened to him and his charges during an outing when a blackout hit New York City. |
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The third section of poems is more personal to Abbott. Though they are not directly autobiographical, they were drawn from his experiences. The man who hated Teletubbies reflects on the generation gap between himself and his granddaughter as they watched TV. The man who could not remember considers the insignificance of his life as a child in comparison to noted academician Catherine Drew Gilpin, who as a nine-year-old became famous for writing a letter to the president demanding justice for African Americans. Abbott wrote virtually all the poems in the third person except the final two. Those concluding works are written in first person, and directly honor his mother, who died when he was sixteen, and his daughter, who tragically and suddenly died as a child in the 1960's. Abbott told an interviewer several years ago that his poems “celebrate that which is precious, and that which is always in danger of being lost. “We try to hold the moment before it is gone,” he said. “Everything is always being lost, and part of the function of poetry is to hold the dark back.” |
 The cover of Tony Abbott's new poetry book. |
Abbott began teaching at Davidson in 1964 as a young Harvard Ph.D. with an expertise in literary criticism and modern drama. His daughter died three years later, and Abbott began writing poetry to express his grief. However, it remained a private exercise for many years. His first book of poems, The Girl in the Yellow Raincoat, wasn't published until 1989. A Small Thing Like a Breath came out in 1993, and The Search for Wonder in the Cradle of the World was published in 2000. His first novel, Leaving Maggie Hope, won Charlotte's Novello Festival prize when it appeared in 2003, and also the Gold Award for Literary Fiction from ForeWord Magazine. He is now working on a sequel to the novel. “I've had a great time with The Man Who," Abbott said. “Writers always worry that they have nothing more to say and will repeat ourselves. But once I got into it I realized it was something different, and got very interested in what I was doing.” Abbott thoroughly enjoys staying active, and getting paid for jobs he considers more avocation than vocation. Though he officially retired from Davidson College in 2001, he continues to teach in its Humanities Program, which explores the roots and rise of Western civilization. He also teaches a creative writing seminar at Queens University in Charlotte, and is presenting a series of lectures on American novelist and religious writer, Frederick Buechner, at First Presbyterian Church in Charlotte. Davidson is a highly selective independent liberal arts college for 1,700 students. Since its founding by Presbyterians in 1837, the college has graduated 23 Rhodes Scholars and is consistently ranked in the top ten liberal arts colleges in the country by U.S. News and World Report magazine. Davidson has recently completed “Let Learning Be Cherished,” a $250 million campaign in support of student financial assistance, academic resources, and community life. # # # |
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