Violence and Grace: Poems about the American West by Michael L. Johnson (review)

Reviews 173 Does the title “Black Riders”sound familiar? Sure enough, Stephen Crane published Black Riders and OtherLines in 1895. (Crane, a journalist and fiction writer by trade, didn’t like to say “poem.”) In Black Riders and OtherPoems and its sibling, Place-Dream and OtherPoems, Robert Glen Deamer associates strongly with a crew of classic American writers, especially Crane. He addresses the short-lived author of TheRedBadge ofCourage often and intimately in poems such as “Blanket and Spurs,” from Place-Dream. “So when night came, Stephen,/In Germany’s Black Forest,/Were you still dreaming/of that ranch/in Texas?” In empathizing with Crane’s dubiouslyconducted love affairs, especially the unfulfilled relationship with Nellie Crouse, Deamer comes to appreciate “how human/You were—/And how fa­ tally/You were hurt.”Crane would no doubt be pleased by the scrutiny; in our youthful fantasies, we assume someone will rewrite our passions with such devotion. “Westering”appears as a Deamer theme in various guises, concluding with Crane’s, whose “Western stance,”made up in part of self-reliance, courage and masculinity,was discovered in his sojourns in American cowpoke country and in Mexico. The two books also present numerous, heartfelt autobiographical passages rooted in north-central Indiana farmland and several sensuous/spiri­ tual appreciations of Deamer’s own fair love, “Eleny.”Less appealing are forays at social criticism, often accomplished in one sentence, probably meant to be in the fashion of Crane. They remain prosaic. Besides Crane, the figure most evoked by Deamer is Henry David Thoreau. However, the sage of Walden fidgets in the same space as Crane. For better chemistry, it might have been better to place worldly Stephen in one book, transcendental Henry in the other. Reading the clear, often cryptic, poems by Deamer was easy and enjoyable, the deep, thoughtful lines tempered with fun and enthusiasm, as in the homage to Crane, “War-Song”: So bring on, I say, your beautiful Black Riders Charging from the sea: Let them haunt, let them infuse my dream too! DAVE ENGEL Rudolph, Wisconsi) Violence and Grace: Poems about the American West. By Michael L. Johnson (Lawrence, Kansas: Cottonwood Press, 1993. 58 pages, $8.95.) Michael Johnson’s collection of fifty-two short poems follows a rougl historical western chronology, beginning with a section subtitled Trail ofTears that speaks of native Americans’early encounters with Europeans. Except for ; 174 WesternAmerican Literature joyous final poem titled “Hoop Dancer,”this is a somber, yet solid, first section. The final of the four subsections contains lighter poems on contemporary subjects such as tractor pulls and wheat farming. Johnson is an insightful observer and a poet keenly aware of other’s predicaments. In ten of the poems he adopts the voice of various western characters to provide a particular slant on specific subjects. The titles give some idea of their charm: “T. C. Henry Tells the Story of Abilene, Kansas” or “J. L. Mahoney Finally Cuts Loose on a California Yuppie Feminist”or even “Johnny Logo speaks of Troubled Times in Buck Naked, Texas.” Adopting different voices provides poetic license for capturing scattered and quirky scenarios; consequently, the book does not read like a single author’swork. However, the poems are consistently well crafted and range from prickly to truly funny. Most of the poems in this book are short and punchy, and though there is sufficient violence, the grace is less evident. Johnson writes in a boundary area between the historical-romantic western caricature and the sometimes harsh realities ofwestern life, crossing freely between the two. This is a subject served well by poetry because readers will likely augmentJohnson’s terse insights with their individual experiences. Myonly regret is that there is not more material in the book. A. LEE FOOTE Lafayette, Louisiana Decade II: A Twentieth Anniversary Anthology. Edited by Julián Olivares and Evangelina Vigil Piñón. (Houston: Arte Público Press, 1993. 256 pages, $12.00.) Short Fiction by Hispanic Writers of the United States. Edited by Nicolás Kanellos. (Houston: Arte Público Press, 1993. 285 pages, $15.00.) True to form, Arte Público Press has done it again. The oldest and largest publisher ofHispanic literature in the United...