Customer Reviews

Oh How Can I Keep On Singing?: Voices of Pioneer Women

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"Although this is a book of poems and the author is most definitely a poet, she also writes - and this is meant as a complement - like a journalist. From meticulous research, Harris has reconstructed in verse the world of women living in Washington State at the turn of the century. So vivid are the voices of the pioneer teachers, missionaries and the original Native Americans that you occasionally need to turn to the author's notes to be reminded that this collection was written by one contemporary woman. The tone of the pieces is undeniably feminist - the women are earthy and frank, honest about the drudgery of their lives and the ironies of being socially powerless members of their society. But their concerns are not entirely insular. In accessible, not overly poetic language, Harris includes accounts of Native American and white settler distrust and racism, and such real-life events as the Salmon City flood of 1894 and the cattle-killing winters not uncommon in those parts. It's too bad that poetry almost automatically gets shunted into the hardly-read category; this collection belongs in the enlightening historical fiction department. - Sara Nelson

Beautiful and haunting, this tiny book has been read and read again and now stands in a place of importance in my bookshelf. As deep as "Wounded Knee," it is very special.

This is a touching portrait of difficult lives. Beautiful without being "precious"; a must for every history buff.

My first introduction to Jana Harris' poetry was in a writing class in which her "I canned those pears" was used as a example. The poem was, I was told, something that came out of research with the migrant fruit workers. True or not, that description fits Oh How can I Keep on Singing?: Voices of Pioneer Women.

I was raised partially in the Okanogan so I can't claim to be impartial in my praise of these poems. They do a wonderful job of bringing forth the dirt, hunger, poverty and violence of the pioneer days in the Okanogan. Therefore, the poems nicely counterbalance the tendency to idealize the pioneer era - this is no House on the Praire.

Jana Harris has done an excellent job of giving the pioneer women individual voices - these are poems of a collection of individuals not of a homogenious mass of "pioneer women".

Finally, as tightly written poems, the stories have more emotional impact than they might have had in prose.

(I will confess that I also recommend anything by Jana Harris but this or Mahattan as a Second Language is the place to start.)