Asylum in the Grasslands [Hardcover]

Diane Glancy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1999

Poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, and author of more than thirty books, Diane Glancy has established herself as one of the country's most versatile and prolific writers. Distinguished by her laconic honesty, her unflinching eye, and her skillful articulation of the commonplace, she presents Native American life-especially the ways it intersects with nonnative culture-in all its complexity and nuance. In her new collection of poems, she explores the history of loss that has marked the Cherokee community. In a voice that is as economical as it is eloquent and as sophisticated as it is exhilarating, she describes the loss of family, the loss of cultural heritage, and the loss of old worlds as new ones encroach. In one poem, a farm auction becomes an auction of culture, of heritage, of the past. In others, ancestors meet in a twenty-four-hour caf‚, lunch is shared with a great-grandmother who has been traveling the universe, Christ appears as a cowboy in an apocalyptic vision, and Clytemnestra is discovered in a snakeskin. Some of the poems are as campy as a duck-decoy Custer in a shooting gallery. Some glitter with dime-store glue. Others speak with the reflection of sunlight off a stream. Sometimes the verse produces a shortstop language on the baseline of experience. In whatever form they take, Glancy's poems stimulate and challenge the reader with their unfettered, unadorned, and unpretty purity. This collection is not only a spirited ride across the Great Plains, it is also an important addition to the literature.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Glancy writes eloquently and knowingly of her Cherokee heritage, and it is the threat to these roots, the comfort of ancestors, the spiritual journey, and the nature and power of faith that concern her in these new poems. Recommended for collections of contemporary American poetry and Native American literature." —Library Journal

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

DIANE GLANCY is a professor at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she teaches Native American literature and creative writing. She is also the author of The Shadow's Horse and In-between Places, both published by the University of Arizona Press. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Moyer Bell Ltd (December 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559212217
• ISBN-13: 978-1559212212
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,832,435 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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