Idaho's Poetry: A Centennial Anthology

By William Studebaker and Ron McFarland

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0893011282
• ISBN13: 9780893011284
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: University of Idaho Press
• Length: 226 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

The State that has Grown More than Potatoes

So Dan Quayle had trouble spelling that tubular edible root, but does that mean the state that spurned the international recognition of the great table russet go unnoticed and relegated to obscurity...I think not. Idaho has poetry as well as potatoes. And good reading it does make.Ronald McFarland and William Studebaker have made themselves some names among the Idaho literati set, but beyond those bounds and borders, I'm not sure how many folks have heard of the poesy-makers. Idaho has it's literary connections. Ernest Hemingway is buried here. Hemingway did some writing here. Allen Ginsberg has crossed the great state a time or two and has written about it. Ezra Pound, politics excepting, was a son of the state born in Hailey. What do you know, the state, though largely unknown, is on the literary map. "Idaho's Poetry, A Centennial Anthology," speaks to that fact. It is a rich and varied collection of some really good and in spots great poetry.This book is arranged chronologically starting with the Native American poetry of the Nez Perce, Shoshone and Bannock, Coeur d'Alene, and Kutenai. You have to hand it to the editors of McFarland and Studebaker for the thoroughness of their project scope. And the words, rhymes, and language continue on from the Pioneer Poets of the 1860's on to the present contemporaries with each era well and equitably represented. Notable stand-outs for me and my taste in poetry are Margeret Aho's "Carpal Bones," Richard Ardinger's "Report from More's Creek," Alex Kuo's "A Chinaman's Change Shanghai, 1945," and certainly not to be overlooked is Ron McFarland's own, "Orgy," and Ford Swetnam's "One Winter," and "Another Winter."Like the land and it's poetry, their natural edge serrated rock have had a definite effect on my own writing. Thank you McFarland and Studebaker for putting this fine book together if you should ever stumble across this review.And dear reader I leave you with these fine words of Aho's straight from the pages of this good book, "What is unspoken, wordless, lives between the fingers and the forearm, in the pale throats of the wrists which swallow so much and are wise."-- Ahh, beautiful land, beautiful poetry...MMW