"Larry Thomas's ample menagerie—rattlesnakes, mockingbirds, turkey
vultures—transports me to his risky, abundant earth. There, grandmother,
wife, and daughter celebrate and grieve and endure the daily. He shows
little girls at the zoo outside a cage of white tigers; cowhands and bikers;
lovers bathing waist-deep in the Gulf, as if splashing themselves 'with
heaven.' Larry himself is like the woodcarver in one of my favorite poems,
carving 'gulls, skimmers, pelicans,' setting them free 'with the blade / of
his pocketknife.' He writes 'Of Beasts Become Angels,' 'Of Eyes
Wondrously Wild,' 'Of Crows and Cornfields,' and 'Amazing Grace'—and
I believe."—Walt McDonald, 2001 Texas Poet Laureate

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LARRY D. THOMAS retired from a career in adult criminal justice with
the Harris County, Texas, Community Supervision and Corrections
Department in 1998. Book-length manuscripts of Thomas's poetry were
selected as finalists in the 1993 and 1997 Southern and Southwestern
Poets Breakthrough Series competitions sponsored by Texas Review Press
and the Summer 2000 Pecan Grove Press national chapbook competition. 



What people are saying about this book


"Larry Thomas's poems sing out praise, sorrow and the sheer human relief
of survival. The rhythms of Amazing Grace transpose from blues to
gospel with a riff of rockabilly. You'll be glad to listen.—Kathleene West,
Poetry Editor, Puerto del Sol