In today’s episode, we honor award-winning Davidson NC poet and novelist Anthony “Tony” Abbott (January 7, 1935 – October 3, 2020), 2020 Inductee into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame, an organization which celebrates and promotes the state’s rich literary heritage by commemorating its leading authors and encouraging the continued flourishing of great literature.
Tony talks about his writing life and reads poetry from three of his award-winning chapbooks published by Lorimer Press: New and Selected Poems, If Words Could Save Us, and The Angel dialouges.
Of The Angel Dialogues, Joseph Bathanti, Poet Laureate of North Carolina 2012, says that “Abbott miters each poem into the next with the precision of a master carpenter, in language that moves seamlessly, often floating, from impressionism into a quirky vernacular narrative …” And Cathy Smith Bowers, Poet Laureate of North Carolina 2010-2012 says “this angel … is a double-tasking, sarcastic, Yeats-reading, quantum-leaping trickster …
Tony starts the show reading a poem that is one of signature pieces: “The Girl in the Yellow Raincoat.”
