Frog Jump Brazil

Call it serendipity? How else does one explain an itinerant poet finding himself laboring at a job with the Tennessee Department of Transportation, a task that required poring over and rediscovering the wonderful names of Tennessee’s roads and cities?

That poet was P. W. Lea, who already knew and pretty well loved (conditionally and unconditionally) many of Tennessee’s magical places and names. And it was then that his poet-self saw a way to utilize this newfound knowledge, sitting down and spinning out poems and scattered prose, extolling the many virtues (and drawbacks) of these strange but wonderful places so oddly named: the highways and byways all around the Volunteer State.

In the process he created a body of writings honoring these mystical roads. What follows is a sampling of that effort. Some are brief lyrical sketches, while others go into more depth, exploring Tennessee history. All may be worth reading and contemplating upon; this book might even promote a road trip of your own, to see some of these hidden treasures of our folklore and heritage.