Blackbird Archive
← v15n2, Fall 2016
Poetry · Volume 15, Number 2

Fable

Rodney Jones

Mann regarded his man-selves. Drastically. Mann addled. Mann indigo.

Mann challenged by man-hubris and man-baggage sang to the portal in the

bathroom vanity. The dewlaps under his chins vanished. Mann the tiger

endorsed his man-animus, his man-shadows. Elegiac Mann raised his brow to

topmast. Mann down sang to Mann up. Mann out to Mann in. Mann

quicksand to Mann Aurora Borealis. Mann the old man saw Mann the boy.

In Jakarta, on the twentieth of May, whitening his teeth, dyeing his hair.

Mann loved himself in spite of the age difference and the language barrier.

agingidentityhumorbody
Rodney Jones

Rodney Jones is the author of eleven books of poems, including four collections from Houghton Mifflin: Salvation Blues (2006), winner of the Kingsley Tufts Prize, and a finalist for the Griffin International Poetry Prize; Elegy for the Southern Drawl (1999), a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; Things That Happen Once (1996), finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award; and Transparent Gestures (1989), winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. His other awards include the Harper Lee Award, the Jean Stein Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. His new book, Village Prodigies , which combines techniques of poetry and fiction, will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in the spring of 2017. He teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and lives in New Orleans and Southern Illinois.