Women Poets of the West: An Anthology, 1850–1950 ed. by A. Thomas Trusky (review)

Reviews 327 aggressive showmanship.” Brenner’s directness should be respected though the need for it decried. Those charged with summing up engage many of the concerns and considerations raised by the other papers and, indeed, the intent of the conference itself. Richard Etulain presents several suggestions intended to foster further comparative study and, because he maintains that Canadian scholars of the West are far more capable of discussing the American West than Americans are the Canadian, would like to see seminars on the Canadian West set up for American scholars. Henry Kreisel summarizes the major papers and comments on the readings by poets and novelists that complemented the analytical papers; Max Westbrook presents an interesting, if tentative, comparison of The Scarlet Letter and As For Me and My House. Most ambitious, however, is Rosemary Sullivan, who attempts to synthesize as she summarizes and so presents what is among the most chal­ lenging commentaries of the conference: she sees the American vision as essentially romantic or apocalyptic while the Canadian, in contrast, is ironic. This is perhaps too overly-simplified and reductionist, but her comments will certainly spark further comment. In his introduction Dick Harrison suggests that Crossing Frontiers “may be a useful starting point for the comparative study of Canadian and American Western literature.” At this time it is the only starting point. And that is both the strength and the weakness of the volume: anyone interested in the comparative study of the literature of the two wests must know it but, because it records the first attempt to approach the two realms in tandem, questions compound upon more questions. Crossing Frontiers, finally, is a well-presented book which, by its very direction, attests to the westering experience in North America. Clearly, the dance across the 49th parallel has begun. ROBERT THACKER University of Manitoba Women Poets of the West: An Anthology, 1850-1950. Edited by A. Thomas Trusky; introduction by Ann Stanford. (Boise, Idaho: Ahsahta Press, 1978. $4.95.) With its new anthology Ahsahta Press brings to many readers their first real taste of western women poets. Women Poets of the West gives us the character, the scenes, the moods of the west, as seen by fourteen women who chose poetry to render the themes of their environment. 328 Western American Literature As poet-critic Ann Stanford cogently suggests in her introduction, the landscape dominates. From Eliza R. Snow’s “cloud-topp’d mountain” to Sharlot Hall’s silent desert, where “heat lights shimmer like a mist of sifted silver,” the setting captures one’s attention. Sometimes, though, it serves as an emblem of defeat, like Genevieve Taggard’s abandoned “American Farm, 1934” with its “crop of tin cans, torn harnesses, nails, links of a chain.” But even the most contemporary of these women, Peggy Simpson Curry, stresses the scenic impact. I see the red butte rise like an old buffalo Enraged by arrow wounds and charge The sagging sky and throw The crouched horizon back until a crack of blue Breaks open — and the birds go through. The moods may vary, but the dominance of the land prevails. A recurring theme in that landscape is the constant pull between East and West. Hildegarde Flanner’s voice, for example, remains “half-slanted and awry, / Tilted to eastward in a western land,” while Peggy Pond Church finds comfort in a spiritual continuity between the two. In fact, throughout the collection one finds a diversity of attitudes similar to the wide-ranging viewpoints found in prose written during the same generations. Even their conceptions of woman’s role vary. Hazel Hall’s homey metaphors of sewing and mending express traditional notions of helpmate and mother, but Nellie Burget Miller’s “Woman in the Field” plays a dramatically different role. One with the soil She seems, her shapeless garments’ faded brown Serves for protective coloring, and Life Has broken her to satisfy some urge As she in turn breaks up the patient clod. Gwendolen Haste presents an even crueler vision, with dark vignettes of misery, madness, and murder. Although technical proficiency is not necessarily their main strength, many of the writers are able to combine metrical competence with sharp visual detail. Taggard...