A Dog’s Job of Work
POEMS BY SAMUEL PRESTRIDGE
Poems of Rural Life, Blues, Memory & Redemption A Soulful Poetry Collection Rooted in Rural Mississippi and Universal Human Experience
Step into a rich and grounded collection of poetry that captures the grit, grace, and music of lived experience. A Dog’s Job of Work by Samuel Prestridge is a deeply felt collection drawn from the author’s upbringing in rural Mississippi, blending free verse with occasional pantoums and villanelles.
These poems move from the razor edge of surreal blues along Highway 61 to moments of quiet reflection, hard-earned wisdom, and possible salvation. With a voice that is both regional and universal, Prestridge writes about place, memory, work, and the small miracles found in ordinary life.
This is not mass-produced or superficial poetry—it is authentic, musically attuned work with heart, humor, and hard-won truth.
Why This Book Stands Out
Unlike much contemporary poetry that stays abstract, A Dog’s Job of Work stays rooted in real places and real lives. Samuel Prestridge brings the blues, Southern storytelling, and sharp observation together in poems that are by turns gritty, tender, and transcendent.
Poems drawn from growing up in rural Mississippi
Mix of free verse with masterful pantoums and villanelles
Praised by notable poets including Roy Bentley and Bill Nevins
Features vivid imagery, musical language, and emotional depth
Explores themes of place, memory, labor, blues, and redemption
This is a collection for readers who want poetry with soul, voice, and a strong sense of place.
More Than a Book—A Meaningful Experience
A Dog’s Job of Work is the kind of book you return to on quiet evenings or when you need to feel grounded. Perfect for slow reading, reflection, or sharing aloud.
It makes a thoughtful gift for lovers of Southern poetry, rural life writing, blues-inspired literature, or anyone who appreciates poetry that honors working lives and the search for meaning in ordinary moments. Whether kept on a bedside table or passed along to a fellow poetry lover, these poems linger like a good song.
Artist Note
“I am struck by: It’s not my line / of sight, so I can’t say. Which, for this writer, serves to anchor this book in a well of hard-won Truth we yet trust.” —Samuel Prestridge
Discover Southern Poetry & Rural Life Verse
If you're searching for Southern poetry, rural poetry, contemporary American poetry, blues-inspired poems, or heartfelt collections about place, memory, and redemption, A Dog’s Job of Work by Samuel Prestridge offers an authentic and compelling voice. Ideal for readers of literary poetry who value regional roots and universal resonance.
About the Author
Samuel Prestridge
“Samuel Prestridge’s poem ‘Loose Gravel’ is a gorgeous 7-part piece of work that ends with this: ‘“I caught the jonquils wagging / their temporal sass while lifting, / lifting themselves from the blank, ruined mix. / Out of the rusty darkness, such yellow.”’ Having read that, and considered it, I begin with a big Wow. The poems in this book unfold, many from a long-title premise or factual assertion, given the way titles occasionally function as a trumpet-fl ourish of sorts. The poem that called me back most often was (and is) ‘“Seven guys all wearing refl ective ge ar and hard hats have taken a break from trenching a sewer line, and they’re standing in a row and looking straight up into the trees, maybe at the cross arm of an old wooden power pole”’—I am struck by: It’s not my job. It’s not my line / of sight, so I can’t say. Which, for this writer, serves to anchor this book in a well of hard-won Truth we yet trust. I’m grateful for Samuel Prestridge.” ~ROY BENTLEY, finalist for the Miller Williams Prize for Walking with Eve in the Loved City.
“From Yazoo City to Robert Johnson’s crossroad and on to our bloody ragged Afghanistan retreat via the Fredericksburg battlefi eld, this poet brings the mad blues razor edge of surreal musicality along Highway 61 Redux, and man, nobody can poem the blooze like Samuel Prestridge.” ~BILL NEVINS, journalist, songwriter, educator, poet, and author of Light Bending
SAMUEL PRESTRIDGE lives and works in Athens, Georgia. His work has been nominated for Best of the Net, and he has published work in numerous publications, including Literary Imagination, Style, The Arkansas Review, As It Ought To Be, Poetry Quarterly, Appalachian Quarterly, Paideuma, The Lullwater Review, Poem, Juke Joint, and The Southern Humanities Review, Delta, Better than Starbucks, Untelling, Hog River Press, and Synkroniciti, where he was a featured poet.
He is a post-aspirational man and is currently an Associate Professor of English at the University of North Georgia. His children concede that he is, generally speaking, an adequate father.