Shortgrass Prairie

These poems in traditional and modern forms using mostly country metaphors celebrate human and animal residents of the western prairie preserving the strong voices and matter-of-fact often ironic view of existence there; at the same time they deal with universal themes such as nostalgia isolation death and mature love. Life's essential ambivalence is a constant and is presented with realism and occasional wry humor.</P> The author includes an Afterward which examines the idea of poems in general and gives hints for reading his own.