Maurice Manning's "Railsplitter"

The Daily Poem

Goldberry Studios

Education For Kids, Arts, Kids & Family

4.6 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 15 February 2021

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

In recognition of President's Day, today's poem is in the posthumous voice of Abraham Lincoln, as imagined by Kentucky poet Maurice Manning.

Kentucky poet Maurice Manning has published five books of poetry, including The Common Man, which was one of three finalists for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. His first collection, Lawrence Booth’s Book of Visions, was selected for the 2000 Yale Series of Younger Poets. He has had works in publications including The New Yorker, Washington Square, The Southern Review, Poetry, Shenandoah, and The Virginia Quarterly Review. - Bio via Transy.edu.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to The Daily Poem. I'm David Kern, and today is Monday, February 15th, 2021. Today is, of course,
0:08.7	President's Day. And so today I'm going to share a poem with you that is in keeping with that theme.
0:13.6	It's by an American poet named Morris Manning. This is a poem called Rail Splitter. It's the title poem from
0:19.4	his collection, Rail Splitter, which came on a couple years ago.
0:22.3	And it is his seventh poetry collection.
0:24.7	His first book, Lawrence Booth's Book of Visions, was selected by W.S. Merwin for the Yale series of younger poets.
0:30.4	And his fourth book, The Common Man, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. surprise. He's a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers and is a teacher at Transylvania
0:37.5	University and in the MFA program for writers at Warren Wilson College. He lives in Kentucky with his
0:43.4	family. Brailsplutter is a book that speaks in the voice of the posthumous voice of Abraham Lincoln.
0:50.2	Over the years, I've read one or two poems from that collection, and it's one of my favorite
0:53.8	recent collections of poetry. So here on President's Day, I've read one or two poems from that collection, and it's one of my favorite recent collections of poetry.
0:55.6	So, here on President's Day, I wanted to share this poem with you.
0:59.0	Again, it's called Rail Splitter, and just remember that it is in the posthumous voice of Abraham Lincoln.
1:07.1	I was killed by an actor, a famous, glamorous young man known for playing the tragic roles.
1:15.3	And I was a president whose face was coarse and enigmatic, though marked by a conscious mole.
1:25.0	But the derringer, he stuck behind my ear produced, in the end, a dark, symbolic
1:31.6	hole, American, and bottomless. No tears can fill it. Your Melville had the accurate verse.
1:42.1	What like a bullet can undeceive?
1:45.7	Hear, here, the antique eloquence of the national curse.
1:51.0	What an ironic martyr I've been.
1:55.4	I'm long in a realm that has no ceilings, though dying was worse.
2:04.1	There is a mystery to being wrong,
	...

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