What do you think?
Rate this book
We Almost Disappear
"An exquisite storyteller."— The Southern Review "David Bottoms's poems just get better and better."— The Atlanta Journal-Constitution "One finds here what one expects in a book of good Southern clear narratives . . . evocative images, searching irony, and meditative poise." — Library Journal Rooted in the customs of Southern families and peopled with undertakers, bluegrass musicians, daughters practicing karate, and elderly parents, David Bottoms' poems are generous, insightful, and lean headlong into familial wisdom. Past and present interweave with grandmothers spitting tobacco juice, ponds "filled with construction runoff," and the boyhood home-site paved over for a KFC. This is Bottoms' most personal and heartbreaking book. From "My Daughter Works the Heavy Bag": A bow to the instructor,
then fighting stance, and the only girl in karate class faces the heavy bag.
Small for fifth grade—willow-like, says her mother—
sweaty hair tangled like blown willow branches.
The boys try to ignore her. They fidget against the wall, smirk,
practice their routine of huff and feint.
Circle, barks the instructor,
jab, circle, kick, and the black bag wobbles on its chain.
Again and again, the bony jewels of her fist
jab out in glistening precision,
her flawless legs remember arabesque and glissade.
Kick, jab, kick, and the bag coughs rhythmically from its gut.
The boys fidget and wait . . . David Bottom , Georgia's Poet Laureate, was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2009. He teaches at Georgia State University and co-edits Five Points magazine. He lives in Marietta, Georgia.
then fighting stance, and the only girl in karate class faces the heavy bag.
Small for fifth grade—willow-like, says her mother—
sweaty hair tangled like blown willow branches.
The boys try to ignore her. They fidget against the wall, smirk,
practice their routine of huff and feint.
Circle, barks the instructor,
jab, circle, kick, and the black bag wobbles on its chain.
Again and again, the bony jewels of her fist
jab out in glistening precision,
her flawless legs remember arabesque and glissade.
Kick, jab, kick, and the bag coughs rhythmically from its gut.
The boys fidget and wait . . . David Bottom , Georgia's Poet Laureate, was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2009. He teaches at Georgia State University and co-edits Five Points magazine. He lives in Marietta, Georgia.
- GenresPoetry
65 pages, Paperback
First published September 20, 2011
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
March 18, 2021
I read this like 6 or so years ago and several of the poems I’ve never forgotten. I got even more enjoyment as a re-read. While not every poem is a five, the collection is. And some of them break the scale to six stars.
June 27, 2022
This relatively weak rating rests more on me than the author. Poetry is just not my thing. I picked this up since I enjoy the area that I thought the book would be describing - mountainous northeast
Georgia. While it does touch upon it in a fairly minimal way, not the descriptive power I was expecting. (I guess I am spoiled by Robert Frost and his descriptions of New England.)
While he successfully portrays some powerful images of aging relatives, I find I prefer straightforward prose to free form poetry.
Still for the fans of poetry, this is probably a short but pleasant read.
Georgia. While it does touch upon it in a fairly minimal way, not the descriptive power I was expecting. (I guess I am spoiled by Robert Frost and his descriptions of New England.)
While he successfully portrays some powerful images of aging relatives, I find I prefer straightforward prose to free form poetry.
Still for the fans of poetry, this is probably a short but pleasant read.
August 18, 2015
We Almost Disappear by David Bottoms is the most recent poetry collection from a southern poet I’ve liked for a while now. Here’s a quick taste: “[O]ther than gratitude / so little survives the world’s chronic revision—a boss line, maybe, / from a poem you’ve forgotten, a penny / you picked up in an alley / for luck, / a voice that blessed you in passing.” (from “Romanticism I”). It’s a collection that is concerned with the passage of time and the themes of aging and family. Early poems recollect the poet’s early days and memories of his grandfather. One whole section later in the book concerns the poet’s aging father, with many of the titles describing him as “my old man,” as in “My Old Man Loves Fried Okra.” That particular poem shows the painful moment when someone loses a defining characteristic to age: the speaker’s father is too tired to thank the church lady for bringing over fried okra, and even too tired to eat it. Another section takes up the poet’s relationships with his wife and daughter, and it had my favorite poem in the whole book: “My Daughter Works the Heavy Bag.” In this poem, the speaker observes his fifth grade daughter in karate class as she negotiates the physical movements of the martial art and the social movements of being the only girl in the class. The images at times are perfect: “Again and again, the bony jewels of her fist / jab out in glistening precision.” I discovered Bottoms, the former poet laureate of Georgia, from the recommendation of a friend in grad school. He told me to read Under the Vulture Tree, and after I did I was hooked. The collection was full of boss lines. This latest collection isn’t quite as good, but it’s still worth checking out.
May 15, 2016
Here are new poems by this great Georgia author. I have read Bottoms since his book Shooting Rats at the Bibb County Dump. This book includes a cycle of poems about the poet's aging father, and others about neighbors, relatives, and Georgia places. Here is one, that gives the title to the collection.
Walking a Battlefield: A Love Story
for Kelly
Fog most always suggests the otherworldly.
Forget I said that,
or mark it off to horror flicks and adolescent
mysticism.
Nevertheless, after a cool rain, in the evening,
when mist gathers its loose foot soldiers in the fields
below Kennesaw,
you can easily imagine or even believe you hear
boots tramping down brush along the skirt
of the mountain.
Now, at sixty, I crave these walks,
where sometimes in the evening, along these trails,
throaty voices croak up for us,
like a hummed spiritual,
or an altar moan, or a night wind through the weedy graveyard
of a B movie,
and we nerve-up just enough
to walk out toward them, along those foggy earthworks,
into those dips, those wallows,
where one hand takes another as we almost disappear.
Walking a Battlefield: A Love Story
for Kelly
Fog most always suggests the otherworldly.
Forget I said that,
or mark it off to horror flicks and adolescent
mysticism.
Nevertheless, after a cool rain, in the evening,
when mist gathers its loose foot soldiers in the fields
below Kennesaw,
you can easily imagine or even believe you hear
boots tramping down brush along the skirt
of the mountain.
Now, at sixty, I crave these walks,
where sometimes in the evening, along these trails,
throaty voices croak up for us,
like a hummed spiritual,
or an altar moan, or a night wind through the weedy graveyard
of a B movie,
and we nerve-up just enough
to walk out toward them, along those foggy earthworks,
into those dips, those wallows,
where one hand takes another as we almost disappear.
January 25, 2016
Poetry that is accessible without being simplistic. Images will stick with you.
May 20, 2016
Some great poems on aging, memory and mortality. Almost all of them are pretty short, no longer than a page.
May 6, 2022
The way Bottoms tells stories of his aging grandparents and father along with the youth of his daughter as she grows up through prose is gorgeous. His poem, “A walk to Slope Creek” includes the lines, “Sometimes when I’ve made the mistake of anger, which sometimes breeds the mistake of cruelty, I walk,” is thought provoking to say the least. In my opinion, the use of this phrase makes the emotion separate from the author and shows that he is not angry or cruel but a person who makes mistakes and seeks change. I rented this book, but I will probably buy it to reread later. The author also works as a professor at Ga State, which is so close!! I may read more by him soon!
May 20, 2023
Excellent, some wonderful poetry here.
July 4, 2017
Favorite lines:
From A Walk to Sope Creek - "Sometimes when my heart is as dark as a stone, I weave between trees above that crumbling mill and stumble through those threaded screens of light the way an anger must fall through many stages of remorse. Any rock, he allowed, can be an altar."
From My Old Man Loves My Truck - "And sometimes when my old man studies the cab, you can hear in his pocket the empty rattle of keys."
From A Chat with My Father - "Sometimes when my old man tries to talk, his mind runs like a small boy on a path through the woods."
From A Walk to Sope Creek - "Sometimes when my heart is as dark as a stone, I weave between trees above that crumbling mill and stumble through those threaded screens of light the way an anger must fall through many stages of remorse. Any rock, he allowed, can be an altar."
From My Old Man Loves My Truck - "And sometimes when my old man studies the cab, you can hear in his pocket the empty rattle of keys."
From A Chat with My Father - "Sometimes when my old man tries to talk, his mind runs like a small boy on a path through the woods."
December 27, 2015
returned library copy and now am ordering my own
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews