A native of Ivanhoe, Virginia, David Huddle served in the U.S. Army in Germany and Vietnam and earned degrees from the University of Virginia, Hollins College, and Columbia University. Author of seventeen books of poetry, fiction, and essays, Huddle has taught at the University of Vermont, the Bread Loaf School of English, the Rainier Writing Workshop, and Hollins University.
Blacksnake at the Family Reunion continues Huddle’s poetic inquiry into the power of early childhood and family to infuse adulthood with sadness and despair—an inquiry conducted with profound empathy for the fragility of humankind.
“With their easy manner and deeply ingrained intimacy, the poems of David Huddle’s Blacksnake at the Family Reunion read as if written on the skin: personal and family history interspersed with the imaginative and the speculative, all scanned and reported with a practiced and practical eye. Inviting in ‘breeze-blown death birds’ while looking for snacks in the back of the fridge, Huddle wonderfully erases the divide between the daily and the profound.”
—Carol Moldaw
“David Huddle’s affection for life is clear and moving. And while the vitality of many of these poems is rooted in the past, Huddle is a master at showing how his past is still alive in his days. I also like that these poems are both sweet and sour, that they openly adore and quietly interrogate. He is especially adept at probing the nature of desire without destroying what he examines, almost daring Heisenberg with his ability to leave what he observes intact. More than anything, I walk away from this book enlivened by Huddle’s appreciation for what he has experienced and seen, a gratitude encoded in the ease and joy of his language.”
—Bob Hicok
Louisiana State University Press
