Railsplitter

Book excerpt: Railsplitter, the seventh collection from Pulitzer Prize Finalist and Guggenheim Fellow Maurice Manning, envisions the role of poetry in the life of Abraham Lincoln. Manning, who writes each piece in Lincoln’s persona, provides a lasting reflection on how poetry guided and shaped the President’s mind while leading a divided nation. Equal parts prophetic and rich in both rural folklore and literary allusions—from Shakespeare, to Whitman, to Poe, to the comedic—Railsplitter transcends the darkness of Lincoln’s time, to imagine a new lore entirely—one comprised of buzzard feather quills, horse treats in a top hat, and finally, a fateful bullet. Lincoln, who was born nearby to Maurice Manning’s childhood home in Kentucky, is alive again, in new form.