My job as a writer is to give voice to the place and the people of the place as best as I can.
Maurice Manning is a poet and associate director of creative writing in IU Bloomington's Department of English.
His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Shenandoah, The Southern Review, and elsewhere.
Born and raised in Kentucky, Manning often writes about the land and culture of his home.
His first collection of poems, Lawrence Booth's Book of Visions, was awarded the Yale Younger Poets Award, chosen by W.S. Merwin. Manning is a Guggenheim Fellow and Pulitzer Prize finalist.
He divides his time between Bloomington and a farm in Kentucky.
(Originally broadcast on October 16, 2011.)