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Anna, washing
Copyright © 2001
by Ted Genoways
Parallel Press
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While traveling in Alaska in 1996, Ted Genoways visited the tiny village of Eagle,
along the Yukon River near the border with Canada. He visited the museum there
and heard the story of Anna Malm, an immigrant woman who is credited with opening
Alaska's first laundry. In her book, Historic Eagle and Its People,
Elva Scott writes: "One of the smallest businesses in early Eagle, Alaska,
could have been Anna Malm's Arctic Laundry. Anna, and her husband, Abe, were
from Finland. Though they spoke little English, they decided to seek out their
fortune in the northern gold fields, mushing in over the Chilkoot Trail. Though
Anna was 54 years old at that time, she packed her load on her back the same as
her husband, who was 19 years younger. Anna had raised Abe and then married him."
Based on this bit of information and his own further research, Genoways has
constructed a sequence of sonnets imagining the life of Anna Malm.
This sequence originally appeared in Connecticut Review.
A group of five of these sonnets was selected by Linda Bierds to
receive the Klondike Goldrush Centennial Committee Award in Poetry. — from the jacket
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Bullroarer
Copyright © 2001
by Ted Genoways
Northeastern UP
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In a language of visceral accuracy made concise and more memorable by metric structure,
Ted Genoways tells an American story that is also emblematic of a piece of American history
—
a history of expansion cruelly compressed by the Depression, a history of the movement from
rural
to urban and suburban life, from the collective autonomy of the family farm to the
depersonalization
of hired labor. This history is incarnated in that of one Nebraska farm family, then
of one man, its youngest son, who was in fact the poet's eponymous grandfather. Genoways
places himself in this first book in the line of a multi-ethnic group of contemporary poets
writing in English who have used the generations of a family as a focus from which broader
historical reflection is generated; some others are Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott, Marilyn
Nelson, Tony Harrison, Eavan Boland, Rita Dove. ... Bullroarer fulfills one essential
test
for a book of poems: it not only merits re-reading, but, having read the whole, the poems
of each section become fuller, clearer and more resonant with each return. I would have
been moved and intrigued to discover any of these poems on its own, but the collection
coheres into a powerful, memorable and singular whole. — from the foreword by Marilyn Hacker
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The Cow Caught in the Ice
Copyright © 1999
by Ted Genoways
Soundpost Press
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In awarding the title poem the Guy Owen Poetry Prize from Southern Poetry Review,
judge Jane Hirshfield described the language of Ted Genoways' poetry as "precise,
tight, sinewy in the mouth." Other poems from the chapbook originally appeared in
New England Review, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Press, Quarterly West, and in
Shenandoah's special issue "Buck & Wing: Southern Poetry at 2000. — from the jacket
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The Dead Have
a Way of Returning
Copyright © 1997
by Ted Genoways
Brooding Heron P
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I feel a deep debt of gratitude to Sam and Sally Green, publishers at
Brooding Heron Press. For those of you unfamiliar with their work, they
produce some of the most elegant and attractive volumes of poetry
available today. Their books are handset, letterpressed, and handbound
— all works of art. What is more, Brooding Heron is committed to
producing these books at low cost, so they are readily available to a
broad audience. With authors like Hayden Carruth, Gary Snyder, Denise
Levertov, and James Laughlin in their list (to name a few), I feel fortunate
that Brooding Heron would take a chance on me as a first time author. I
hope you will recommend the book to other poetry readers, and I hope
you will browse other titles from Brooding Heron. — from the author
"To say I like these poems is a terrrific understatement. Much of the poetry
I read today is nothing more than a thin invitation to watch while the poet
dances. Here, I am inside the poem, breathing as a vital
participant in Genoways' world. I find that refreshing. — David Lee
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What the Critics Say
Bibliography