The Morning with Many Tongues

The Morning with Many Tongues

Sean Hill, Stanford University

Published:

Fri, 2009-02-27

Overview:

Set in locations around his hometown of Milledgeville, Georgia, Sean Hill reads four poems from his debut collection, Blood Ties & Brown Liquor. Drawing upon oral history and close observation, Hill explores biography as well as racial history through several generations of a fictional African American family.

"The Morning with Many Tongues" is part of the Poets in Place series, a Research Collaboration in the Humanities initiative funded through Emory University’s Presidential Woodruff Fund, in collaboration with the Office of the Provost. Series producers are Natasha Trethewey and Allen Tullos.

Sections:

Readings
Interview with Natasha Trethewey
Recommended Resources and Selected Writings

Readings:

Sean Hill reads the poem "Just as Sure." Poem text.

Sean Hill reads the poem "Nigger Street 1937." Poem text.

Sean Hill reads the poem "The State House Aflame 1833." Poem text.

Sean Hill reads the poem "In Memory Hill Cemetery." Poem text.

About Sean Hill:

Born and raised in Milledgeville, Georgia, Sean Hill has an M.F.A. from the University of Houston. He has received fellowships and grants from Cave Canem, the Bush Foundation, The MacDowell Colony, the University of Wisconsin, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Jerome Foundation, and Stanford University where he was a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry. Hill's poems have appeared in Callaloo, Ploughshares, Pleiades, Crab Orchard Review, DIAGRAM, The Oxford American, Tin House, and other literary journals, and in the anthologies Blues Poems, Gathering Ground, The Ringing Ear, and Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry. His first book, Blood Ties & Brown Liquor, was published by the University of Georgia Press in 2008. Hill is an editor at Broadsided Press. He lives in Bemidji, Minnesota. More information, as well as poems, can be found at his website: www.seanhill.org.

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Interview with Natasha Trethewey:

In these excerpts from a December 17, 2008 conversation, Sean Hill talks about sources and influences of the poems in Blood Ties & Brown Liquor. This interview took place on the porch of Andalusia, the home of Flannery O'Connor near Milledgeville, Georgia.

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Recommended Resources:

Map:

Published Work in Print:
Hill, Sean. Blood Ties & Brown Liquor. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2008.

Links and Online Publications:
DIAGRAM
DIAGRAM 7.2: “Bemidji in Spring”
http://thediagram.com/7_2/hill.html

From the Fishouse: an archive of emerging poets
Ten poems and two Q&A responses (May 2009)
Silas Wright at Age Seven 1914
http://www.fishousepoems.org/archives/sean_hill/silas_wright_at_age_seven_1914.shtml
Elegy for an Older Brother 1922
http://www.fishousepoems.org/archives/sean_hill/elegy_for_an_older_brother_1922.shtml
Uncle John
http://www.fishousepoems.org/archives/sean_hill/uncle_john.shtml
Nigger Street 1937
http://www.fishousepoems.org/archives/sean_hill/nigger_street_1937.shtml
Insurance Man 1946
http://www.fishousepoems.org/archives/sean_hill/insurance_man_1946.shtml
Milledgeville Haibun
http://www.fishousepoems.org/archives/sean_hill/milledgeville_haibun.shtml
Penumbra
http://www.fishousepoems.org/archives/sean_hill/penumbra.shtml
Distance Between Desires
http://www.fishousepoems.org/archives/sean_hill/distance_between_desires.shtml
Sugaring Redux
http://www.fishousepoems.org/archives/sean_hill/sugaring_redux_.shtml
Sam Kee, I imagine…
http://www.fishousepoems.org/archives/sean_hill/sam_kee_i_imagine.shtml
Sean Hill Q&A on the genesis of his poem “Uncle John”
http://www.fishousepoems.org/archives/sean_hill/sean_hill_qa_on_the_genesis_of_his_poem_uncle_john.shtml
Sean Hill Q&A on the formal strategy of “Distance Between Desires”
http://www.fishousepoems.org/archives/sean_hill/sean_hill_qa_on_the_the_formal_strategy_of_distance_between_desires.shtml

How a Poem Happens
Interview by Brian Brodeur (Dec. 2009)
http://howapoemhappens.blogspot.com/2009/12/sean-hill.html

Lyric Poetry Review
Lyric Poetry Review Issue Six: “Harrowing”
http://www.lyricreview.org/issues/hill.htm

The Missouri Review
Poem of the Week feature (Sept. 14, 2010): A Photograph Taken in Duluth
http://www.missourireview.com/content/dynamic/potw_detail.php?mt_metatext_id=79

The Rumpus
One poem (April 2009): Postcard to Nostalgia
http://therumpus.net/2009/04/postcard-to-nostalgia-by-sean-hill/

The Tusculum Review
Featured Artist Series (Jan. 2009) “Somniloquent,” “Visiting the Carriage House,” “Yet in Bemidji”
http://www2.tusculum.edu/tusculumreview/2009/01/19/sean-hill-2/
http://www2.tusculum.edu/tusculumreview/2009/01/19/sean-hill/
http://www2.tusculum.edu/tusculumreview/2009/01/19/sean-hill-3/

Collaborations Online:
Born Magazine: Art and Literature Collaboration
Born Magazine (2002) The Schizophrenic Tenant with Steve Keane
http://www.bornmagazine.org/projects/schizophrenic/

Broadsided: putting literature and art on the streets
Broadsided (Sept.1, 2006) Insurance Man 1946 with Jim Benning
http://www.broadsidedpress.org/more06.shtml

Pendu Gallery: Art & Actions
Pendu Gallery (2007) Necks of Swans and Ducks as part of Cabinet of Natural Curiosities led by Jasmine Dreame Wagner with Jonathan Zalben, and Jasmine Landau
http://www.pendu.org/artists/cabinetofnaturalcuriosities/

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