Woven on the Wind: Women Write About Friendship in the Sagebrush West - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0395977088 ISBN 13: 9780395977088

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin, 2001

Synopsis

Focuses on the friendship bonds between women and highlights the beauty, sturdiness, and symbiosis that characterizes the American West.

About this title

About the Author

LINDA HASSELSTROM is the author of many highly acclaimed books of nonfiction and poetry and the coeditor of Leaning into the Wind and Woven on the Wind. She divides her time between Wyoming and South Dakota.

GAYDELL COLLIER is public library director who has coauthored several books on horsemanship.

NANCY CURTIS owns and operates High Plains Press from her cattle ranch, publishing award-winning books of poetry and nonfiction.

Reviews

A fine collection of essays, poems and personal narratives about life in "sagebrush country," where friendships must weather numerous hardships, this tough and tender new work continues the collaborative effort begun in Leaning into the Wind (1997). The editors, who all manage working ranches, know firsthand the harsh realities of the American West and the bolstering power of friendship among women there. Indeed, sagebrush is a fitting symbol for women of the West, with its hardy adaptability and fundamental importance to the ecosystem. The editors gracefully present writing by more than 150 women like them. While all celebrate female camaraderie vividly distinctive against the backdrop of a vast, stark and often lonely terrain each tells a unique story. Karen Obrigewitch's brief essay "Who Else?" cuts to the heart of this collection: "How can any female survive without close women friends? Whom does she call when she needs affirmation, when her first-born leaves for college, when the calves don't bring enough cash to pay off the bank, or when her parents die? Who would cry with her?" Other contributors include Dorothy Blackcrow Mack on marrying into a Lakota family, Rose Hill about her blind mother crocheting in the dark and Lillian Vilborg on working on a single mother's farm. These stories illuminate the worn paths between farms and ranches and the simple pleasure of sitting on the back of a pickup sharing a cup of tea with a kindred spirit.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

This anthology of more than 150 contemporary women writers from the West is a sequel to Leaning into the Wind (LJ 6/1/97). Through poetry, memoir, and essay, it examines the friendships of women leading secluded rural lives and how their bonds were formed over picking chokecherries, mending fences, or sipping coffee in the back of a pickup at sunset. Images of the West, the high plains, desert winds, and sagebrush are abundant, lending a romantic air to the uncomplicated prose. By focusing on the associations among women living in the remote West, the editors Hasselstrom (Bitter Creek Junction, Feels Like Far), Gaydell M. Collier (Basic Training for Horses), and Nancy Curtis (Black Heritage Sites) shed light on the complexity of relationships. Themes of isolation, intimacy, and independence weave through the pieces, unifying the collection as a whole. Regardless of demographics, the message is universal: relationships are necessary for survival. Though this collection leans toward the sentimental, it is eminently readable, having the appeal of being written by everyday women. There is nothing lofty about this book. On the contrary, it's proudly down to earth. Recommended for public libraries. Stephanie Maher, Warwick, RI
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Capitalizing on the popularity of Leaning into the Wind (1997), a collection of essays, stories, and poems that provided an overview of women's lives in the contemporary West, that book's editors reprise its successful format with a more narrowly defined focus. The theme is women's friendships in the American West, and more than 150 women contribute poems, anecdotes, and personal reflections that offer intimate perspectives on the nature of friendship in an often harsh and isolated environment. In hauntingly lyrical verse and forthright prose, the women who lend their eloquence to the compilation describe the significance of female relationships in what many consider to be a man's world. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

I

My Feet Set Down Roots: The Grounding

Woven on the Wind begins with writing by Western women who have set their roots deep in the soil, drawing nourishment from the earth as well as from "women remembered." Life in this arid country has taught these women to stay "close to the wind, earth, creeks, grasslands," learning from the land and from each other.

Hardy and versatile, women have always been part of the West, but they were often invisible to the mythmakers who did, and still do, view the West as a male fantasy. "The joys of a woman's life" were "not mentioned in books, not found in the universities or corporations." Ignoring the lively truth, or taking for granted women's triumphs and talents, official historians and literature professors often acknowledged only the "antiseptic remains of history." But the truths endured, "growing quietly in the hearts" of women scattered throughout the West.

Sagebrush, too, was often ignored or overlooked. Until Kendall Johnson began referring to "Mama Sage," little homage was paid to sagebrush, and even less to Western women. Philip Fradkin says that sagebrush has come to dominate the plains "by pure ordinariness" and persistence, another apt description of women. Many biologists now believe that sagebrush is as essential to Western ecology as women are to humanity -- that without sagebrush, the entire ecosystem would collapse.

For a while, women "pretended not to notice" being forgotten in formal accounts. Keeping busy with their households and other tasks, they kept an "undulant silence," accepting the idea that women were "supposed to want other things."

Hiding the truth doesn't make it disappear. News stories about drug use, alcoholism, and other ills make it clear that the West is not immune to the problems of the larger world. But even poor soil, even the greasy, hard-packed clay we call gumbo, can bring forth beauty -- "gorgeous flowers in gumbo" -- just as many of the stories in these pages grew from difficulty. Telling our stories helps us realize how similar we are and creates connections between women "with wind- chapped cheeks and wrinkle lines" who may never have met. Just as sagebrush, deeply rooted, shelters other plants and feeds an abundance of wildlife, so these stories can provide comfort and community for others, both in the West and elsewhere.

Stoic acceptance was the first rule of enduring hardship of any kind in many Western families. Tradition taught Westerners never to argue, never to complain, because "the more it hurts / the bigger the pearl." In joy or sadness, we sang or wept "without saying a word," learning from some of our elders that "lonely is a state of mind." Our silence sanctioned and helped promote the creation of a Western myth that had no place for the reality known to women. Each woman who has written her story has taken a stand, saying, "I chose to break my silence."

Writing of friends, mothers, teachers, and others, ordinary women have recorded a rich and varied legacy of other women from the past. In poems and essays, "in quiet words we speak," each woman tells how her "feet set down roots," how she drew strength from others, learning to survive in spite of isolation and loneliness.

Even as the editors compiled and shaped this manuscript, we knew that some tales would remain untold and found another striking parallel between women and the sagebrush outside their doors. Beneath the outer bark of sagebrush root hides a slender white filament called the heart thread. Only by peeling away the root's tough husk -- or opening up the dark shell of a woman's silence -- can we find the translucent heart. To learn how other women have illuminated our spirits, we must know their stories. If "we share our lives," we will remember the women who inspired us, and their light can "never dim, flicker, set, or be extinguished." But if our "deeper feelings are mostly inaccessible," we cannot move toward a deeper understanding of one another.

The heroines in this "tapestry of tales" are often humble women with little to leave as souvenirs. We may find a thread to follow in objects as common as faded photographs in a tin box or as startling as a wooden leg in the attic. Although we may no longer see "their faces flashing in the sun," their wisdom enriches and inspires us. Through these pages, they live on to cast their light over a larger circle.

"Rooted to the earth," the women who inhabit the following pages have grounded us and given us the courage to go forward. "Tapping into ancient rhythms," their stories set their roots deep in our hearts, showing us how to thrive and how to nourish.

Copyright (c) 2001 by Gaydell Collier, Nancy Curtis, and Linda Hasselstrom

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0395977088
• ISBN 13: 9780395977088
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 310
• Editor: Collier Gaydell, Curtis Nancy, Hasselstrom Linda M.