Amazon.com Review
The legacy of poet Paul Engle, who died in 1991, includes the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, which he helped found in 1967, and the memoir A Lucky American Childhood. Engle grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, during the 1920s on a hardscrabble farm where his family struggled to make ends meet. Not necessarily the normal training ground for a poet and educator, but Engle finds in his childhood the raw materials that shaped him not only as a poet but as a person as well.
From Library Journal
Poet Engle (1908-91) was the founder and longtime director of the famous Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. In this posthumously published memoir of his growing up in Cedar Rapids, he commemorates his boyhood and mid-American small-town life in the early 20th century. In vivid narratives filled with details of remembered sounds, tastes, and smells, he re-creates the defining experiences of his "hard and happy" youth. These include portraits of his harsh, hard-working father and long-suffering mother, lessons he learned toiling in the family stable, and fondly remembered holiday rituals. The memories are bittersweet, evoking nostalgia for a bygone way of life while revealing the shortcomings of a hardscrabble rural life. This work is the 12th volume in the Iowa "Singular Lives" series in North American autobiography and provides new insights into the character and literary techniques of a renowned teacher of writers. Recommended for all collections.?Carol A. McAllister, Coll. of William & Mary Lib., Williamsburg, Va.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
