ABOUT LARRY D. THOMAS

Larry D. Thomas was born and raised in West Texas, but has resided in Houston, Texas, since 1967. A recently retired criminal justice management professional, he received his B.A. degree in English literature from the University of Houston in 1970. His poetry has appeared in numerous national literary and consumer magazines, including Poet Lore, Southwest Review, The Journal of the American Medical Association, The Midwest Quarterly, Puerto del Sol, The Texas Review and Borderlands. His first book of poems, The Lighthouse Keeper, issued by Timberline Press in January, 2001, was selected as a pick by the Small Press Review and featured in the May/June 2001 issue. His book-length manuscript entitled Amazing Grace was awarded the 2001 Texas Review Poetry Prize and published by Texas Review Press in fall, 2001.

The Woodlanders
Larry D. Thomas

A finalist for the 2000 Pecan Grove Press National Chapbook Competition, The Woodlanders received a Violet Crown Book Awards Special Citation from the Writers' League of Texas.

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ISBN: 1-931247-05-6

"Larry Thomas’s The Woodlanders offers the work of a poet hitting his stride, in love with the things of his East Texas home. He holds the herons, pines, chiggers, and cicadas out at arms’ length for us ‘to let their music work,’ allowing us the joy of living in his world for a while. You just can’t go wrong with a poet like this or with poems this strong.”

—Jack B. Bedell, author of At the Bonehouse and What
Passes for Love, Editor of Louisiana Literature

“Larry Thomas’s poems have the smack of the piney woods, all their rot, dankness, and entropic decay. His is a secret voice—dark and disarming—that intones the rhythms of the Southeast Texas woodlands where earth, air, and water blend. Like the carapace of a cicada, his poetry produces melodies that are natural but startlingly original. His is a voice that freshens language as well as place.”

—Jerry Bradley, author of Simple Versions of Disaster, Poetry Editor of Concho River Review

Neches River

It moves along the bottom
of Deep East Texas
like the minute hand over the face
of an antique grandfather clock,

turgid with its prehistoric
cargo of gators and seven-foot gars
waving their fins in utter darkness.
A wild sow

tests it with her cloven hoof,
takes the plunge, and heads across it
with her three terrified shoats.
Soon, in absolute silence,

it will swallow them whole,
smooth out the frantic ripples
of their passage, and flow on,
keeping as it has for hundreds of years

its turbid, lugubrious time.

Learm more about Larry Thomas and his work at his personal website at http://www.larrydthomas.com/

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1997-2003
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