Cattle, Horses, Sky, and Grass: Cowboy Poetry of the Late Twentieth Century ed. by Warren Miller (review)

224 Western American Literature impressive qualityof the writing and the consistent focus upon place provide it with remarkable continuity. The volume’s now-established writers include Ed­ ward Abbey, Terry Tempest Williams, Richard Nelson, Gretel Ehrlich, William Kittredge,John Daniel, DavidQuammen, and GaryNabhan, though it isworth noting that several of these writers were not well known when their work first appeared in NorthernLightsmagazine. Forexample, readers maybe surprised to learn thatWilliams’s“The Clan ofOne-BreastedWomen”made itsfirstappear­ ance in the magazine, as did Abbey’sdelightful “Something About Mac, Cows, Poker, Ranchers, Cowboys, Sex, and Power .. . and Almost Nothing About American Lit.” Despite itsroster ofliteraryluminaries, one ofthe genuine pleasures ofthis book is the fine work by less familiar writers such as Ellen Meloy, Bill Vaughn, and Leslie Ryan. Meloy’s “Communiqué from the Vortex of Gravity Sports” takes a comical look at the ironies of “wilderness experience”on a river packed solid with partying, Day-Glo-clad, fashion-conscious “nature lovers.”In “Notes from the Squalor Zone,” Vaughn examines that “other West”—not the trope-filled landscape of cowboys or climbers, but the “Big-Dog-and-Trailer belt” of poverty that surrounds many cities in the West. Among the most powerful pieces in the collection, Leslie Ryan’s “The Clearing in the Clearing” and “The Other Side ofFire”make vital connections between personal lossand the regenerative power ofwilderness. Asolid collection ofcontemporarywriterswhosework engages the life and landscape in the American West, NorthernLightswW be valuable and interesting to scholars and general readers alike. MICHAEL BRANCH University ofNevada—Reno Cattle, Horses, Sky, and Grass: CowboyPoetry oftheLate Twentieth Century. Edited by Warren Miller. (Flagstaff: Northland Publishing, 1994. 212 pages, $14.95.) Cowboypoetryhas been called everythingfrom the most important literary movement in the country to doggerel in a cowboy hat, but even its enthusiasts mightfeel let down byWarren Miller’sconservative editing of Cattle, Horses, Sky, and Grass. Miller has everyright to champion the traditionalist camp ofcowboy poetry, while all but ignoring the experimenters who have opened the genre to free verse and new attitudes. But his vote for uniformity makes for less than compelling results. Strict meter and rhyme are the norm in this book, necessitating many a filler phrase to stretch out a line. Intriguing but not really convincing is Peggy Godfrey’s defense of her use of rhymed verse, claiming it evokes the ever­ present rhythms of ranch life—the “intervals ‘tween [fence] posts and wires,” the “steady chug of mybaler,”the “rhythm in myhorse’sgait.” Reviews 225 As conservative in content as in form, the poets chosen for this anthology share predictable partisan concern for declining beef prices, appreciation for the hard work that they and their horses perform, awe of (mixed with adversarial posturing towards) the forces of nature, and allegiance to ranch etiquette. The female voices, which comprise one-third of the twenty-seven voices included in this volume, hardly add what could be termed a feminist perspective on ranch life. Maggie Mae Sharp complains that her husband will “plop his butt on that outhouse seat/That ain’t been washed in fortyyears,/Or he’ll use a public phone/That’sprob’blytouched a thousand ears. . . ./But he steadfastlywill not kiss me/if I have kissed my dog.”In a similarly comic vein, CaroleJarvis details howdifficult it isforwomen to relieve themselveswhile out on the range. Cornythough theyare, these two poems, and manyothers, could well bring down the house if recited with showmanship to a good-humored audience. Millerisrighton targetwhen he saysthat, despite its recent prolifera­ tion in print, cowboy poetry remains “essentially a spoken art form.” Trackers of the movement will want to note that some of the best known cowboy poets, among them Wallace MacRae, Vess Quinlan, and Paul Zarzyski, are given space in this anthology. PAUL HADELLA Southern OregonState College A BridgeBetween Us. ByJulie Shigekuni. (NewYork: Doubleday, 1995. 254 pages, $18.95.) A creative writing teacher in New Mexico, Shigekuni makes a brilliant debut with this novel, which takes us inside aJapanese American family in San Francisco, a familyoffour generations ofwomen forced to liveunder the same roof by tradition and by economic necessity. Although an immigrant novel, A Bridge Between Us is atypical of its genre: it is not...