Out of print since 1987, with a new foreword by the publisherJohn Crawford and a new afterword by Doubiago, this second edition ofHard Country restores to general availability one of the great booksof twentieth century American poetry. Presented in four parts, Headstone, Headland, Heartland, and Heartsea, the final and briefest part which contains the couplet "behind the livid hieroglyphs a woman/ I don't see is on the horizon of the desert, screaming," and closes the entire epic with:

buoyed for the moment on my barren coffin, my soft-shelled eggs, with only love for hope look back onto the whole country, its lethal tide its love of death its hatred of love and warn you

So we can't say we haven't been warned, and warned in no uncertain terms, and in a multitude of tones. "I am the history of this country" the poet declares in the poem "Bicentennial," which ought to make it pass muster with at least the Ezra Pound traditionalists where an epic is a poem containing history. Hard Country contains several great and distinct individual poems as well including the poem "Hard Country," about, like much of the whole book, Indians and their effect on Americans of all kinds. "One said you think you're just surrounded by your tall buildings/ and farms, but we're all around you. You'll never be rid of us," and later, "They're inside our bodies now where they can't be fought." Other great poems include "I was Born Coming to the Sea," "Avenue of the Giants," "Crazy Horse," and the poem "Wyoming." Back and forth across this country with her face turned straight at it, the poet goes at her peril, reciting its terrible history against the backdrop of its equally awesome potential. This is a poem of the "West" in America because it frequently traces history from the West to the East, in the opposite direction to which the European incursion occurred and from which it is usually taught, as if the history of this disaster was coming towards us instead of spreading out, "over there," beyond New Jersey as our culture is falsely imagined from the fortress of New York. "There is just something spiritual about poetry, something about consciousness, the psyche; it tends to drive you into the forcefield of others and other things. It seems to provide a more direct means for making emotional and truthful critiques of the culture and the facts of your life," Doubiago claims in her "Afterward." Speaking of her methods, she says "Sometimes there really is a beginning, middle, and end. Postmodern/language poetry, the current enforcer against narrative and the I, is not just the poetry of those of us in genuine resistance to the King and exploration for the free world, or simply of the rebellious young who are trying to get away from home, but ominously, the poetry of professors, critics and the Corps who must stay impersonal. It's the poetry of the married and employed, the academicians and the trustfunders. It's the poetry for those who aim to keep their relationships of blackmail. Hard Country is an attempted synthesis of these conflicting aesthetics and consciousnesses, including also the poetics of my college educators who were mostly New Critics and formalists. It holds the vision that many of our writing rules and attitudes are of the same mentality as the U.S.'s genocidal policy of Manifest Destiny, the military's 'law and order' that led us into Vietnam and all our wars (all stupid, tragic, and avoidable) the legal and psychic control of women, all non-whites and their cultures, and our ongoing ecological destruction of Earth. It is a quest for full consciousness, a fuller reality in writing anyway than had ever been allowed me, a child of America who believed like religion in its guaranteed 'freedom of speech,' and an attempt to be honest in writing, to admit to my own participation in the evil, however helpless and innocent. To try to face the consequences of my privileges. To try to get free." Doubiago is a poet who says she wants to "occupy space without filling it." Reading the love written into every line of this poem is a transformative experience. She is able to write, in "Austin: The Making of a Boy," as sympathetic a portrait of Lyndon Johnson as we're ever apt to get. So too her marvelous rendition of Sitting Bull. These are real people in our history and our lives. "I was so slow to talk that I was threatened with specialists. I wouldn't talk because of the self-mortification of imitating and obeying...All my life I've wanted to just speak, truth out of my mouth without pretext or artifice." Hard Country is a book of warmth, substance and style. Entire books will be written about it. Like all great works, it will take longer to write the exegesis than the text itself occupies. There isn't a library in this country, personal, public or private, that won't be enhanced by having Hard Country in it. Doubiago meets the test of the best prophetic writing, cf E.M. Forester and his opinions of Emily Bronte, Melville, Lawrence and Dostoevsky, by looking straight at her subjects without flinching, for finding the exquisite detail that conveys the whole, and for feeling so deeply about the subjects that they acquire the power of song. It is the tone of broken love, the passionate plea for a future that makes the work prophetic. Doubiago has said that when we talk about soul we're talking about our feelings. There will be feeling in your future. The rest of time will be recognizable and indistinguishable from the past. When you begin to feel, as this poem is capable of stimulating you to, the doors to the future can open.

This poem is awsome! Hard Country is an exciting and moving epic poem about a woman's life. Doubiago uses a road trip to to explore her own personal issues. The searching theme in this peom is so moving that even the reader will become involved in the search for her Ramon. A powerfull poem for anybody who likes Whitman's Song of Myself, William's Patterson, or H.D.'s Trilogy. This poem will be a classic!

casey l. b. kwang has composed (written is not a good enough word)a wonderful work of art in On Blue Felix Paper. He tells of his eternal predicament as an orphan (both literary and metaphorical) and of his unjustifiable but inescapable resort to the contemporary drug subculture and travels from apathy to sensitivity and back. The poems are refreshingly devoid of pathos, but he injects feeling into his observation, most poignantly with the recurrent theme of finding home in the world. The poems are very easy to read, but will leave you thinking about them afterwards. He manages a great deal of lyrical complexity in a few simple words and images. You can feel his poetry in his artwork as well, which is similarly intriguing and tangible, yet representative of the larger intangible emotions that afflict human vulnerability.

The poem covers a journey of the poet with her daughter from North to South America. As they travel, the poet attempts to come to terms with her relation to her past, her daughter, and to men. She does so with fresh and striking language, and an unevasive honesty which does not fool itself with the poses of so much contemporary poetry. Doubiago does not write about how people are supposed to feel; she writes about how they do feel, in real and human situations. I highly recommend it.

My last critique of this book looks harsh to me now. While it is true that this isn't a who done it, it does raise awareness. The only words I still agree with from my last review after a year of contemplation is.....The (only-NOT ONLY) good thing I find about this book is that it does get Anna Mae's name out and about and on people's minds. The book is not a who done it. -- The writing style no longer seems to be so crystal mystic'y', it has a flow of its own. I recommend this book as a source of background information regarding some of the details surrounding the life of Annie Mae. Jennifer

This book begins with a five page list of AIM casualites that occured on Pine Ridge Reservation between the years of 1973-1976. As the author points out, these are "documented homicides"-the actual number could be as high as 300 or more. One of the documented homicides is Annie Mae Pictou, a 30 year old AIM leader and mother of 2 small daughters. Claypoole's book is a passionate investigation of her life in the various genres of poetry, journalistic writing, and interviews of people who knew Annie Mae, but are reluctant (to this day) to speak any truth regarding her life, and death...she was found in a ravine on the edge of Pine Ridge Res, February 24, 1975 with a bullet wound in the base of her skull. As part of the autopsy, her hands were severed at the wrist and sent to Washington, D.C...she was then buried as "Jane Doe", cause of death listed as "exposure".Urged by Canadian family members, the body was later exhumed, revealing the execution-style death, and identified as Anna Mae Pictou...in the words of Anna Mae Pictou: "I am a part of this creation as you are, no more and no less than each of you within the sound of my voice. I have a right to continue my cycle in this Universe undisturbed." This book speaks for Anna Mae Pictou's fierce desire to exist with the dignity of a free human being among other free human beings. THIS BOOK IS HER HANDS.

This book is filled with passion and insight; they ooze from thepages....Knowing the author and knowing the book, I can state that there is honesty in each line. Integrity in each concept. Read the book. Experience the heart.

If you want a compendium of "poetry" that sounds like it's been written by horny high school students, this book is for you. Otherwise, don't bother. There are f-words and spread legs in about every third poem, which would be fine if the book was billed as erotic poetry rather than spiritual, and if the poems were actually good. I write this as a Gen-X former Seattlite who is not easily offended, except by stupid juvenille works like "Ode to My Scrotum." The notable exception to this pedantic tripe (hence the one star) is the inclusion of Sherman Alexie's contributions - which can be found in his own readily available books. A glaring omission is anything by Denise Levertov (too Christian?). Also, Theodore Roethke is absent - a stunning lack given his racy writing (which is actually good). If you're looking for something worthy of the title of this unfortunate publication, check out Alexie, Levertov, Roethke, Hugo, or Anne Dillard instead.

Editor Charles Potts has assembled a number of very talented poets hailing (sort of) from the Pacific Northwest. Some are extremely obscure, others like Sherman Alexie and Bukowski are relatively well-known, and all follow a certain Beatnikish ethos: writing should be spare and powerful, and, yes, pissing, drinking beer and having sex can be as spiritual as any other activity. Which is not to say that that this anthology is all farts and one word lines. Plenty of strastopherically high culture is here, experimentalism, pathos, insight too. Potts lays out his philosophy in the introduction; if you've ever appreciated his work, or that of d.a. levy or Bukowski, you'll enjoy this volume. It will send you scurrying back to the internet to seek out more work by the contributors.