Notes Concerning the Author
David Middleton was born in Shreveport in 1949 and was for many years professor of literature and Poet-in-Residence at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana. He is a still active poet whose verses display a profound Southern, Agrarian, and Christian viewpoint.
Our Review
Middleton’s work has not yet been collected in one book but has appeared in a series of slim volumes, most published by the Louisiana State University Press from 1991 to 2014: The Burning Fields, As Far as Light Remains, Beyond the Chandeleurs, The Language of the Heart, The Habitual Peacefulness of Gruchy, and The Fiddler of Driskill Hill.
Fred Chappell has described Middleton’s work as “poetry for the ages” and as “sensuous descriptions charged with intellect.” Middleton ranges over Western civilization, while remaining firmly rooted in the soil of rural Louisiana, as in The Habitual Peacefulness of Gruchy, where he relates his home country to Jean-Francois Millet’s nineteenth century paintings of French country life. Lewis P. Simpson has suggested that Middleton is a poet who celebrates “the reality of the mystery of God” in a post-Christian age. Simpson adds that Middleton’s poetry represents “an aspiration that is still hauntingly alive in his mind, the desire of southerners to create their homeland in the harmonious ideal of the classical-Christian civilization.”
Availability of these Poems
Most of Middleton’s works are still in print. We suggest an internet search.
CNW