Winning the Dust Bowl: Volume 47

By Carter Revard

Book Overview

Bootleggers and bankrobbers in the Oklahoma Dust Bowl. Proctors and punters at Oxford. Activists and agitators of the American Indian Movement. Carter Revard has known them all, and in this book-- a memoir in prose and poetry-- he interweaves the many threads of his life as only a gifted writer can. Winning the Dust Bowl traces Revard's development from a poor Oklahoma farm boy during the depths of the Depression to a respected medieval scholar and outstanding Native American poet. It recounts his search for a personal and poetic voice, his struggle to keep and expand it, and his attempt to find ways of reconciling the disparate influences of his life. In these pages, readers will find poems both new and familiar: poems of family and home, of loss and survival. In linking-- what he calls "cocooning"-- essays, Revard shares what he has noticed about how poems come into being, how changes in style arise from changes in life, and how language can be used to deal with one's relationship to the world. He also includes stories of Poncas and Osages, powwow stories and Oxford fables, and a gallery of photographs that capture images of his past. Revard has crafted a book about poetry and authorship, about American history and culture. Lyrical in one breath and stingingly political in the next, he calls on his mastery of language to show us the undying connection between literature and life.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0816520712
• ISBN13: 9780816520718
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: University of Arizona Press
• Length: 212 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Wonderful Read

Very nicely written piece of history. Loved the poems throughout. I've bought a few copies to give to family members also.

A compelling memoir and a compendium of superb poetry

Winning The Dust Bowl is an impressive collection of Native America writer Carter Revard's poetry and prose memorializing Oklahoma Dust Bowl era bootleggers and bankrobbers, Oxford proctors and punters, American Indian Movement activists and agitators; all interwoven and augmented with his own life experiences on the Osage reservation in rural Oklahoma, his academic success as a Rhodes Scholar, Yale Ph.D., and tenure as a professor of medieval literature. Winning The Dust Bowl is both a compelling memoir and a compendium of superb poetry that can be very highly recommended for students of American literature, Native American culture, as well as an heroic and erudite reconciliation of disparate influences and heritages in the life of an exemplary scholar.