Like many a pioneer exiting the eastern forests, Paul Christensen felt the strangeness of an alien landscape when he first arrived in Texas in 1974. Schooled in the cool colors of life and poetry in the urban East, he approached his new career in the Southwest with missionary zeal and purpose: to discover the land and the kind of people and poetry it produced. West of the American Dream is a multifaceted account of that search. Christensen shares his feelings of culture shock in eastcentral Texas as he meets the cowboy ...
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Like many a pioneer exiting the eastern forests, Paul Christensen felt the strangeness of an alien landscape when he first arrived in Texas in 1974. Schooled in the cool colors of life and poetry in the urban East, he approached his new career in the Southwest with missionary zeal and purpose: to discover the land and the kind of people and poetry it produced. West of the American Dream is a multifaceted account of that search. Christensen shares his feelings of culture shock in eastcentral Texas as he meets the cowboy version of the bluecollar Texan and his Mexican American neighbors. He introduces readers to the convoluted history of poetry in Texas, a tradition, started by women, that shifted from a focus on the land to the quotidian habits of urban living. Using a unique dissection of the public ritual of a poetry reading, Christensen assesses the origins of modern poetry, the value of imagination in modernist and postmodernist verse, and what Texas poets achieved and how their work evolved after World War II. Taking a break here and there to describe characters who crossed his path and who embodied different aspects of Texas mythology, Christensen then presents three portraits of modern Texas artist/poets--Vassar Miller, Charles Gordone, and Ricardo S???nchez--to show the results of twentiethcentury poetic evolution in Texas. He concludes that in order for Texas poetry to achieve maturity and fulfillment, writers must turn away from selfreflection and become "new Whitmans" who will instill moral passion and delight into poems that offer a vision of nature and a sense of responsibility for the earth. West of the American Dream will find an appreciative audience in all readers who respect the deep purpose of environmental action and the important role poets can play in its nurture, in Texas and elsewhere.
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Add this copy of West of the American Dream: an Encounter With Texas to cart. $3.00, good condition, Sold by Books From California rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Simi Valley, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2001 by Texas A&M University Press.
Add this copy of West of the American Dream: an Encounter With Texas to cart. $18.00, like new condition, Sold by Bingo Used Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Vancouver, WA, UNITED STATES, published 2001 by College Station, Texas, U.S.A. : Texas A & M Univ Pr.
Add this copy of West of the American Dream: an Encounter With Texas to cart. $36.65, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Hialeah, FL, UNITED STATES, published 2001 by Texas A&M University Press.
Add this copy of West of the American Dream an Encounter With Texas to cart. $45.00, good condition, Sold by Inside the Covers rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Lancaster, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2001 by Texas A&M University Press.
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Seller's Description:
0890967539. Stated first edition. Signed, inscribed and dated by author on front endpaper. HC, Texas A&M Univ. Press, 2001. Dust jacket has some wear along top edge and slight scuffing, and is in good plus condition. Covers have slight wear at bottom by spine and at the corners.; Tarleton State University Southwestern Studies in the Humanities; 9.37 X 6.36 X 1.22 inches; 360 pages.
Add this copy of West of the American Dream: an Encounter With Texas to cart. $65.00, very good condition, Sold by Between the Covers-Rare Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Gloucester City, NJ, UNITED STATES, published 2001 by Texas A&M University Press.
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Near Fine in Near Fine jacket. First edition. 340pp. Illustrated from black and white photographs. Slightly musty, near fine in a near fine dustwrapper with thin internal dampstain on foredge of panel. Warmly Inscribed by the author to fellow poet Daniel Hoffman. Additionally, laid in is a greeting card Inscribed by the author to "Dan & Liz." "Number Fourteen, Tarleton State University Southwestern Studies in the Humanities." The author's encounter with central Texas and its origins of poetry with three portraits of modern Texas artist/poets Vassar Miller, Charles Gordone, and Ricardo Sanchez.
Add this copy of West of the American Dream: an Encounter With Texas to cart. $68.91, new condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Hialeah, FL, UNITED STATES, published 2001 by Texas A&M University Press.
Add this copy of West of the American Dream: an Encounter With Texas to cart. $75.65, new condition, Sold by GridFreed rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from North Las Vegas, NV, UNITED STATES, published 2001 by Texas A&M University Press.
