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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thar's Gold in This Here Book, December 24, 1999
This review is from: In the Colorado Gold Fever Mountains (Paperback)
Welcome to Gold Creek, the fictional Colorado boom town in the 1860s that is the central character in Robert Cooperman's collection of extraordinary dramatic monologues, In the Colorado Gold Fever Mountains. These poems tell of the most lowdown of high times, for Gold Creek is a town that, in Mr. Cooperman's words, "is emblematic of that most American of activities: working like a dog to strike it rich quick." In this book, the inner lives of the townspeople rise from the dead and, like ghosts compelled to confess, at last speak true. From Mayor Cavendish to Mary Benedict, the Golden Slipper's charwoman, dozens of characters reconstruct the loves and lusts of a town that rose from, only to return to, dust, even though some of that dust was gold. And yet, despite its portrayal of the ultimate squalor of Gold Creek's riches, Mr. Cooperman's collection is great fun to read. One can't help being captivated by the Shakespeare-loving badman John Sprockett, his face hideously mauled by a bear. Sprockett is guide to one Sophia Starling, a daring English beauty, on her one-woman tour of the Rockies. This Victorian vestal virgin for high adventure sports a truncheon, no less, obtained from a New York City policeman. The sexual frisson between Sprockett and Starling is exquisitely funny and touching, as the snowed-in pair learn that two people could not be more perfectly mated--or ill-suited for one another. Equally fascinating is the tale of Etta Lockhart, the prostitute hanged (or "jerked to Jesus," in the talk of Gold Creek) for killing her abusive pimp. Her hanging is the book's central event, reacting to which the townspeople show their true colors (which are more than a little muddy). Mr. Cooperman's poetry perfectly adopts the vernacular of the Colorado mines. The characters speak in that plain American that even cats and dogs can read. Their confessions are often punctuated by the surprise of a simile as they reach for words to make clear their most turbid feelings. "She slapped my face/her palm a hive of hornets," Linnett Sparks says--a poor miner's widow, recalling how, in her girlhood, her mother had reacted to Linnett's mentioning her lost sister's name. Later, on catching a glimpse of outlaw John Sprockett all sorghum-sweet in the presence of Miss Starling, Linnett--now a cook at the Blue Lady Mine--admits, " If he looked at me that way/my skillet might've melted." In the Colorado Gold Fever Mountains proves Mr. Cooperman to be a great storyteller, an accomplished poet and a robust lover of life.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A work of great and varied invention by a skilled, sure poet, September 28, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: In the Colorado Gold Fever Mountains (Paperback)
Robert Cooperman's In the Colorado Gold Fever Mountains captures in its own mountain of vivid, readable poetic monologues the Gold Rush experience from top to bottom. In the three books of poetry that comprise this handsome volume, Cooperman introduces us to characters of all kinds, many of whom we get to know well. At times, the book seems uncanny in how it reveals character. In one poem, a character speaks of another--a woman's anger and bitterness toward a faithless man. In the next, that same ne'er-do-well is seen in a wholly different light by a gold-panner, or the town's doctor, or a saloon-keeper. A living picture of sin and life's small salvations emerges from this choir of well-differentiated voices. Of course, some poems in this measurable collection are stronger than others, but the beauty here is the immense power of the whole package. I felt grateful to be in Cooperman's presence for the nights in which I read the book. I enjoyed my continuous sense of amazement that such a good poet could imagine that garish and golden and gritty world with such intensity--and such generosity of spirit. Hardly anyone's writing like this now. So reading Cooperman's latest work is truly a special delight. His other full-length book, In the Household of Percy Bysshe Shelley, is still available from the University of Central Florida Press. I recommend that highly, too. Cooperman's fearlessness, which keeps him writing the kind of books virtually nobody else in American is writing now, makes him a treasure for all readers.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You will never view poetry in the same way again., August 11, 1999
This review is from: In the Colorado Gold Fever Mountains (Paperback)
So, you say you like reading about the history of Colorado's early gold mining camps but usually don't like poetry? Well, you are in luck. Robert Cooperman, one of Colorado's premier poets, has written a book of narrative poems that is unlike anything you have read in a long time. In The Colorado Gold Fever Mountains is a trilogy of poems that are a pure delight to read. These poems paint pictures of the people and events in 19th century mountain towns that are so vivid you will take a place among the participants. Cooperman does this by giving realistic, believable voices to the people living in the Mountain West we know as Colorado. Book One takes the reader into the thoughts, activities and every day life of residents and visitors alike to a fictional Colorado gold camp. Don't miss "Francis DeLacey, Publisher of the Gold Creek Optimist" or the thoughts of "I.O. Emerson, Freighter, Salida, CO." This is definitely not your every day poetry. Book Two is my favorite. It is titled A Coffin and a Carved Stone and relates the towns feelings prior to, during, and after the death of a prostitute who was hanged. The thoughts attributed to "Simon Black, Hangman" and "Thomas Burden, Preacher" will stay with you long after you lay the book aside. Book Three describes the journey of a proper English lady and her hired outlaw escort on a tour of Colorado in the 1870s. It is a touching, gentle, harsh narrative with a surprising ending. Cooperman has a talent to write nattative poetry in a manner that draws the reader in, sits them down, and virtually involves them in the discussion or event. He is that good. If you are looking for a book that portrays the entire spectrum of humanity as it may have been during the gold fever period of 19th century Colorado, get this book. You will never view poetry in the same way again.
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