Stories I Ain't Told Nobody Yet: Selections from the People Pieces

In one of the most powerful poems in this 96-page collection, a mother asks her grown child to come home while she is still alive: ``I could fill you up with stories, stories I ain't told nobody yet. . . . When I am dead, it will not matter / how hard you press your ear to the ground.'' Like the voices in the oral histories collected by Studs Terkel, these monologues and dialogues from east Tennessee and the Appalachian region ``all come from people,'' and while the poems ``remain true to the speaker's thoughts and rhythms of speech,'' they are Carson's ``distillations.'' Haunting and funny, full of folk wisdom and unflinching honesty, the characters seem spotlighted on a stage. Many poems presume an adult perspective and understanding, but all reflect Carson's sensitive and unsentimental awareness of her characters' lives and language. A Richard Jackson Book. Ages 12-up. (Mar.)