Poems of the American West

Edited by Robert Mezey

In this provocative and thoughtful anthology, many voices join in illuminating the remarkably vast and varied American West. The verse collected here ranges from American Indian tribal poems to old folk songs like "The Streets of Laredo,” from country-western lyrics to the work of such foreign poets as Bertolt Brecht and Zbigniew Herbert. Here is the West in all its rich variety-the harsh life of farms and ranches; man's destructive invasion into forest and desert solitudes; the bars and bistros of San Francisco and Hollywood; Pacific surf and endless highways; the ghost towns, the poverty, and the legendary world of cowpunchers and gunslingers.From Robert Frost's "Once by the Pacific” to Charles Bukowski's "Vegas,” from Fred Koller's "Lone Star State of Mind” to Thom Gunn's "San Francisco Streets”-the West is evoked in all its incarnations, both actual and mythic.

Foreword ROBERT FROST (1874–1963)Once by the Pacific Auspex The Gift Outright GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE (1880–1918)AnnieWITTER BYNNER (1881–1968)Defeat ROBINSON JEFFERS (1887–1962)Compensation The Eye FOLKSONGSMe and My Uncle Jesse James The Streets of Laredo The Buffalo Skinners THOMAS HORNSBY FERRIL (1896–1988)Bookmarks Science Came West BERTOLT BRECHT (1898–1956)Hollywood Landscape of Exile JANET LEWIS (1899–1998)For John Muir, a Century and More Afte His Time TRIBAL POEMSChippewa: “Sometimes I go about”Yokuts: Song of the EclipseMakah: SongHidatsa: We Made a Fire Papago: Song of the Brown Buzzard Dakota: Song of Reproach Chippewa: Where the Fight Was Pawnee: Better to Die Young Crow: Prayer Offering Malecite: Tale Pawnee: Buffalo Dance Song Chemehuevi: Love SongSanpoil: After Hunting Yuma: Death Song Sioux: “The earth is all that lives” YVOR WINTERS (1900–1968)The Journey On Rereading a Passage from John Muir John Sutter To the Holy Spirit BREWSTER GHISELIN (1903–1996)Rattlesnake HeadlandKENNETH REXROTH (1905–1982)From Andree Rexroth—Kings River Canyon THEODORE ROETHKE (1908–1963)The RoseJOSEPHINE MILES (1911–1985)West from Ithaca J. V. CUNNINGHAM (1911–1985)Montana Pastoral From To What Strangers, What WelcomeMontana Fifty Years Ago KARL SHAPIRO (1913–2000)California Winter Western Town California Petrarchan VIRGINIA HAMILTON ADAIR (b. 1913)Mojave EveningSecond Coming WELDON KEES (1914–1955)Two Cities WILLIAM STAFFORD (1914–1998)At the Bomb Testing Site The Tillamook BurnIn the Oregon Country What Ever Happened to the Beats? Traveling Through the Dark ANN STANFORD (1916–1987)The Four HorsemenCHARLES BUKOWSKI (1920–1994)VegasLEE GERLACH (b. 1920)Genesis CHARLES FOSTER (1922–1967)How Everything Was in the End Resolved in California LOUIS SIMPSON (b. 1923)West The Redwoods ZBIGNIEW HERBERT (1924–1998)Sequoia JOHN HAINES (b. 1924)Pawnee DustGhost TownAlive in the World Men Against the Sky EDGAR BOWERS (1925–2000)Someone in San Francisco Breakages DONALD JUSTICE (b. 1925)Henry James by the PacificBanjo Dog Variations ALAN STEPHENS (b. 1925)After Work: Foreword From Water Among the Stones Along the Matilija—XVI The End of Something —XVII Yucca WhippleiDAVID WAGONER (b. 1926)TumbleweedFire by the River HENRI COULETTE (1928–1989)The Extras From The Hermit—ElsewhereQuakeThe Garden JAMES WRIGHT (1928–1980)The FrontierOutside Fargo, North Dakota WILLIAM DICKEY (1928–1994)On His Way to Wyoming Coyote’s Song CHARLES GULLANS (1929–1993)Los Angeles Place Names From Many Houses, Part 1 THOM GUNN (1929–2004)Hitching into FriscoSan Francisco Streets BERT MEYERS (1929–1979)From Landscapes—The City The Drive MILLER WILLIAMS (b. 1930)Pity and Fear PETER EVERWINE (b. 1930)Collecting the Animals The Marsh, New Year’s Day How It IsCOUNTRY & WESTERN LYRICSThis Ain’t My First Rodeo [Vern Gosden, Max D. Barnes and Hank Cochran] A Better Class of Losers [Randy Travis and Alan Jackson] Lone Star State of Mind [Fred Koller] Faster Horses [Tom T. Hall] GARY SNYDER (b. 1930)Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain LookoutHay for the Horses DICK BARNES (1932–2000)Granite Intrusive Few and Far Between On a Painting by David Hockney Pomona Laundresses Shoot Out Willie Boy Erles Trophy HuntBagdad Chase Road in JulyRHINA P. ESPAILLAT (b. 1932)When We Sold the Tent RICHARD SHELTON (b. 1933)Sonora WindFrom Whatever Became of Me Requiem for SonoraJOHN RIDLAND (b. 1933)Lunch at Deer Creek Black Angel VERN RUTSALA (b. 1934)The Shack Outside Boise N. SCOTT MOMADAY (b. 1934)Fort Sill Earth and I Gave You Turquoise CHARLES WRIGHT (b. 1935)Laguna Blues GEORGE KEITHLEY (b. 1935)From The Donner Party —Land Logic ROBERT MEZEY (b. 1935)In Texas: Variation on a Theme of Borges’ LUIS SALINAS (b. 1937)My Fifty-Plus Years Celebrate SpringSTEVE KOWIT (b. 1938)Jacumba LAWSON FUSAO INADA (b. 1939)Utica, North Platte GLOVER DAVIS (b. 1939)The Eagle TED KOOSER (b. 1939)Abandoned Farmhouse Mrs. Jones: Country-Western MusicA Summer Night RON KOERTGE (b. 1940)Road KillRuidoso, N. M. OLIVIA SIMPSON ELLIS (b. 1941)Looking West Signing Your Life AwayMICHAEL SHEPLER (b. 1942)Diary of a Lost GirlOut There in the Dark C. G. HANZLICEK (b. 1942)Moment B. H. FAIRCHILD (b. 1942)The MenBrazilNANCY WARE (b. 1942)No NameMICHAEL CREAGAN (b. 1944)Taking a Walk on Sunday LARRY LEVIS (1946–1996)The Poet at Seventeen GREG PAPE (b. 1947)Winter Night Under Black Mountain R. S. GWYNN (b. 1948)At Rose’s RangeTIMOTHY STEELE (b. 1948)A Shore LYNN EMANUEL (b. 1949)One Summer Hurricane Lynn Spawns Tornados as Far West as ElyDAVID ST. JOHN (b. 1949)Chapter ForeverTIMOTHY MURPHY (b. 1951)Buffalo Commons The Last Sod Busters “It is Very Far North . . .” The Failure JAMES GALVIN (b. 1951)Not So Much on the Land as in the WindThree Sonnets SUZANNE LUMMIS (b. 1951)Notes Taken at Ocean Beach, San Francisco Poem Noir Earthquake ALBERTO RIOS (b. 1952)Wet Camp Spring in the Only Place Spring Was MARK JARMAN (b. 1952)The Supremes GARY SOTO (b. 1952)Saturday at the Canal SUZANNE DOYLE (b. 1954)Heart’s Desire JOE BOLTON (1961–1990)Laguna Beach Breakdown The Lights at Newport Beach Days of Summer Gone Acknowledgments