Crazy Horse In Stillness (American Poets Continuum) [Paperback]

William Heyen (Author)

Book Description

Series: American Poets Continuum | Publication Date: January 1, 1995

This collection of poems explores the collision between a civilization of western time and one of primal timelessness.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

For Heyen, Crazy Horse embodied the spirituality of Native American culture as well as the fierce passion of a people under attack. The stillness of Crazy Horse would cause the air and the words around him to hum with an energy these poems echo in soft, intense vibration. Indeed, for Heyen, Crazy Horse seems to function as a muse in the ether, guiding the rhythm and topic of each poem. Heyen also includes many poems about Elizabeth Custer, left at home and reading the letters of her battle-weary husband, painting a portrait of Iron Horse, and remembering fragments of her life. Finally, Heyen draws apt parallels between General Custer and Crazy Horse, giving the collection thought-provoking as well as lyrical qualities. Elizabeth Millard --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Ever since Homer's time, poets have wrestled with the difficulty of transmitting historical events through the prism of verse, attempting to balance recorded facts with intuited truths. William Heyen's recounting of America's most legendary adversarial relationship - that of Sioux leader Crazy Horse and Army General George Custer - awards pride of place to the imagination. Though informed by published histories, letters and diaries, this series of more than 450 lyric poems constitutes a "fusion of dream & time," an unpredictable extrapolation of the psychological, social, and spiritual energies that led the principals and their nations to a fateful, bloody meeting on June 25, 1876. Avoiding rhetorical bombast and scholarly clutter, Heyen allows the rich imagery and tragic ironies of the West to emerge: a buffalo herd frozen to death in a canyon; the young Crazy Horse attempting to capture an eagle while cadet Custer struggles with a term paper on "the red race;" the grim, exhausting labor of extracting tens of thousands of buffalo tongues for shipment to chic Eastern restaurants; Custer's wife Elizabeth in a prairie tent, experiencing the "terror of being late, that some day/hundreds of men would have to wait/because a woman had lost her hat pins." Whether or not we believe Heyen's stated claim to psychic kinship with the spirit of Crazy Horse, his ability to maintain the reader's sense of surprise andwonder through an avalanche of poems both surreally plain ("Footnoted") and plainly surreal ("Custer in Cyberspace") is an amazing achievement in itself, enriching our sense of the past with a singular sense of the present. -- From Independent Publisher

Product Details

• Paperback: 275 pages
• Publisher: BOA Editions Ltd.; 1ST edition (January 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1880238292
• ISBN-13: 978-1880238295
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,527,606 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Romancing the history, April 2, 2002

By 

"miltbrann" (Scandinavia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crazy Horse In Stillness (American Poets Continuum) (Hardcover)

It's quite odd, I'll admit, to write a pretty thick book of poetry and solely deal with one specific historical event. For the common man it sounds like it's easy for the poet to shoot himself in the foot many times if he is to make dry history into poetic language. This book shows that it is indeed possible to make great poetry of it after all.

Heyen has his own vocabulary throughout the book and manages to make historical figures all fit into his special universe, like everybody turned up on his writingdesk and got special instructions from Heyen on how they should react to special things. The remarkable is that Heyen stays very true and close to historical facts and is accurate, as far as I can trace him, throughout the book.

Of course Heyen, through the two protagonists Custer and Crazy Horse, makes it almost a fight between industrialization and nature, civilisation against free spirit. Heyen knows well that in todays society Custer is the winner, but still the other part of us still want to be free, perhaps only in different ways than C.H.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very beautiful, perceptive book, August 1, 2000

By 

W. Price "poems&things" (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crazy Horse In Stillness (American Poets Continuum) (Paperback)

Mr. Heyen's perceptive and beautiful piece of work is a joy to read. Pieces are very touching, and other pieces very funny. Heyen is a witty and intelligent writer. His deep knowledge of and empathy with the historical facts contribute to the understanding and compassion throughout his book. Most of the short poems resemble tiny stories, quick pictures of Crazy Horse, his friends and enemies, Custer, Mrs. Custer, all those folks from that time out there. Heyen writes uncomplicated and lovely prose poems. You don't need to know the facts of the Little Big Horn to enjoy Heyen's poetry, though it helps to know he has his facts right. His emotions are in the right place too. You can enjoy this book even if you have never read a poem since high school. It reads damn good.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Crazy horse in Stillness, March 30, 2000

By 

janet nittmann (Massachusetts,United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crazy Horse In Stillness (American Poets Continuum) (Paperback)

Very touching poems about the brave and spiritual Crazy horse. Some poems have a sense of eeriness while most are understandable. Overall it is a good book which deserves at least 3 stars or 4.