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2021 William C. Weathers Memorial Prize

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Degeneration

                                With a first line from Part V of Carl Phillips’ “Cortège”

by Jeremy Gentry

 

O what, then, did it feel like when Paw cut paths through the old growth of his land, strong hands pushing tall levers of a yellow dozer— grandson at his blue-jeaned knee— breaking pines and oaks to make the land his own, to tame the wild familiar  And what must it feel like now, with dementia making this his last trip to that land, to bend and splinter new-grown pine against the bumper of a white sedan— grandson beside him still— convinced he cut a road here once, right here, corner of his property, a nervous path atrophied to wilderness behind his wide, unfamiliar eyes

 



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