Richard Reitz

Shortgrass Prairie Richard Reitz

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. The author includes an Afterward which examines the idea of poems in general and gives hints for reading his own.