David Middleton celebrates the artist Jean-Fran ois Millet's sympathetic realism depicting the harsh life of French peasants in the nineteenth century and honoring their essential human dignity.
Middleton follows Millet, picture by picture, in taking a lowly pastoral theme and elevating it to epic and tragedy.
He seeks to describe Gruchy -- the small Norman village near Cherbourg where Millet grew up -- and explore that rural world in relation to the American South and his own career as a Louisiana poet.
About the Author David Middleton is the author of two previous poetry collections, The Burning Fields and Beyond the Chandeleurs.
He is a professor of English, Alcee Fortier Distinguished Professor, and Poet-in-Residence at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana.
Louisiana State University Press The habitual peacefulness of gruchy: poems after pictures by jean-franois millet, paperback/david middleton
