Well-crafted poems about animals of the West. These poems are alive. They quicken the senses, sharpen the vision, heighten our delight in life and its creatures. Some prick the conscience. Every poem grows our awareness of the GREAT SILENT MAJORITY that dwells all around us. And underlying these studies of the reality of nature is a profound search for the nature of reality.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
Any poet who can give you 'the flight of swallows / busy as typewriters' and 'the burning rust of a desert rose' has deepened your ability to see and to hear, to savor our miracle of perception. --Kim Stafford, author of THE MUSES AMONG US: ELOQUENT LISTENING AND OTHER PLEASURES OF THE WRITER'S CRAFT --Kim Stafford, author of THE MUSES AMONG US: ELOQUENT LISTENING AND OTHER PLEASURES OF THE WRITER'S CRAFT
Goodman is a natural poet. From the arch humor of 'Conversation With a Bear' to the bared grief of 'Requiem for Mousie', these poems are alive with sensuous details, and it is the details that carry the emotion. Heron in its sternly etched clarity is one of several poems in this collection that come as close to perfection as any of Wendell Berry's, Robinson Jeffers', Gary Snyder's or Mary Oliver's. --Karen Chamberlain, author of DESERT OF THE HEART --Karen Chamberlain, author of DESERT OF THE HEART
I was truly touched by these poems. Jack Goodman's poems are visceral, emotional paintings. They move you beyond Idaho borders to a place where words and images touch your soul. It is a fulfilling journey every step of the way. --Patricia Santos Marcantonio, author of RED RIDIN' IN THE HOOD AND OTHER CUENTOS --Patricia Santos Marcantonio, author of RED RIDIN' IN THE HOOD AND OTHER CUENTOS
Goodman is a natural poet. From the arch humor of 'Conversation With a Bear' to the bared grief of 'Requiem for Mousie', these poems are alive with sensuous details, and it is the details that carry the emotion. Heron in its sternly etched clarity is one of several poems in this collection that come as close to perfection as any of Wendell Berry's, Robinson Jeffers', Gary Snyder's or Mary Oliver's. --Karen Chamberlain, author of DESERT OF THE HEART --Karen Chamberlain, author of DESERT OF THE HEART
I was truly touched by these poems. Jack Goodman's poems are visceral, emotional paintings. They move you beyond Idaho borders to a place where words and images touch your soul. It is a fulfilling journey every step of the way. --Patricia Santos Marcantonio, author of RED RIDIN' IN THE HOOD AND OTHER CUENTOS --Patricia Santos Marcantonio, author of RED RIDIN' IN THE HOOD AND OTHER CUENTOS
About the Author
Jack Goodman is a cattleman, mountain climber and businessman. He lives on a small farm near Buhl, Idaho where he raises purebred Dexters, a miniature Irish breed of cattle. He has been published in Mountain Gazette and Western Horseman. This is his first book.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
For poetry lovers, nature lovers, and lovers of animals,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Wind Songs from Turtle's Back (Perfect Paperback)
Thoughtful, beautifully crafted poetry by, believe it or not, an Idaho cattleman. My favorite of his poems are the two having to do with earthworms.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Poetry at one with Nature,
By
This review is from: Wind Songs from Turtle's Back (Perfect Paperback)
I'm not a frequent reader of poetry, but I am a lover of nature. In his poems, Goodman illustrates nature as one who lives it, works it, and knows it. His words portray images and feelings of earthly things; animals, plants, and flowers; they are comfort-giving, sympathy-evoking, and treasured necessities. Some of the poems give an impression belying the poet's life of a farmer or rancher; as if he lives a life of leisure, spending all his days merely observing the natural world and writing about it ("Watching my Cat", "Sitting on the Front Porch in Autumn", "From the Kitchen Window"). This illusion is put to rest as others reveal an obvious and intimate oneness he enjoys, one reached by laboring in the landscape as one must do to be instantly available when opportunities arrive and disappear in a flash, if he is to write authentically as in these poems.
"October, Wild Geese Calling" is true to the experience of anyone who's heard a group of geese flying overhead, their wings flapping en masse, giving life to the air they inhabit in a cooperative choreography man can only strive to imitate. "Feeding, Four Below," in its humorous brevity, evokes instant sympathy with both the cows and the man who's donned the Carhartt coat and boots and braved the brutal cold to keep his animals alive. And "Mustang" conveys the grandeur of the magnificent creature in his native condition, before forced submission eventually lulls away any remnant of his independent spirit as he eats his cut hay instead of escaping through an open gate. The more lighthearted "On writing a Poem When my Cool Cat Deigns to Give me Some Attention" describes the animal's purr as a "song a motorboat would make if motors were made of silk". The cat "gives me a long stare" in an experience anyone who's spent time with a cat knows well. Goodman writes of horses and cattle, along with smaller and wilder creatures and things of earth and sky, as one who values the soul of the earth. He knows his animals as a mother knows her children. And his esteem for them strikes the conscience of a nature lover who might otherwise carry on, merely admiring, instead of looking more deeply at the innate dignity with which things of the earth live and die. It is evident that Goodman treasures the moments in which he can observe and feel nature; treasures them so much, he is compelled to write about them.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Jack Goodman Knows What's What,
By
This review is from: Wind Songs from Turtle's Back (Perfect Paperback)
I opened the book in the middle, read the unlikely title "Requiem for Mousie," and was stunned by unexpected tears (I never cry) that stroked a few of my own long-forgotten wounds. Hypnotized, I read poem after poem and felt all of my senses touched one by one, like piano keys. A gentle, smoothe blanket fell on me and touched me with beautiful images, tinkling sounds, and feelings both external and internal. In "Dark Wings" the owl -"her sylvan gaze piercing my sight...darkness was her light...but how am I to understand my fright?"--at once filled me with awe, and a somehow-soothing terror . In "Woodpecker," I melted into "the intricate web of land and sky" that "quietly held the lengthening day," and on the next page "redwing blackbirds sitting like punctuation marks" popped into my mind's eye. These poems suck you into feeling, hearing, and seeing life in a fine-tuned way. Jack Goodman knows animals and the land, and knows how to hush your spirit with words.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
