<i>Cowboys: Voices in the Western Wind</i> (review)
2012; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 65; Issue: 9 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/bcc.2012.0404
ISSN1558-6766
Autores Tópico(s)Archaeology and Natural History
ResumoReviewed by: Cowboys: Voices in the Western Wind Deborah Stevenson Harrison, David L. Cowboys: Voices in the Western Wind; illus. by Dan Burr. WordSong/Boyds Mills, 2012. 42p. ISBN 978-1-59078-877-6 $17.95 R Gr. 4-7. Twenty-two poems, partnered with sweeping oversized portraits, trace the lives of nineteenth-century cowpunchers; after wrangling cattle on the ranch in Texas, they join up with a cattle drive, ride herd on the critters across the miles, and then deliver them to the railhead in Abilene, Kansas. The poems, almost all free verse, are short-lined and colloquial, speaking in the voices of the cowboys themselves, sometimes in dialogue. The poems have a you-are-there immediacy that, at their best, conveys the flavor and rhythms of the cowboys, guys teetering between danger and boredom ("Ever see a real gunfight?/ Curly says he saw one once/ in Abilene," one says to another as they shoot at cans). The three-quarter spread and full-page illustrations follow the school of famous Western painter Charles Russell in their dusty photorealism; thoughtful, dramatic compositions, with strong figures contrasting with the pale skies, add energy to the evocative poses of eager, tired, hopeful, and regretful cowpokes. The book design is artistic in its own right, the scuffed beige of the page backgrounds extending the earthtoned, sun-bleached plains, while curly Ponderosa-style-font titles adorn and introduce the poems. Compact though it may be, this is a more evocative distillation of the Chisholm Trail experience than many longer books achieve, and it'll make a lively companion to factual titles such [End Page 457] as Albert Marrin's Cowboys, Indians and Gunfighters (BCCB 3/94). A closing note provides more information. Copyright © 2012 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
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