Shortgrass Prairie

These poems, in traditional and modern forms using mostly country metaphors, celebrate human and animal residents of the western prairie, preserving the strong voices and matter-of-fact, often ironic, view of existence there; at the same time they deal with universal themes such as nostalgia, isolation, death, and mature love. Life's essential ambivalence is a constant and is presented with realism and occasional wry humor.

The author includes an Afterward which examines the idea of poems in general and gives hints for reading his own.

Richard Reitz grew up on western Nebraska farms and ranches. He earned his baccalaureate at the University of Colorado, and following a stint as a Navy journalist, joined the academic community where he spent nearly thirty-five years in various capacities, including teacher, division chair, and for more than half his career, director of college public relations and publications at Casper College in Wyoming from which he retired as emeritus in English. Earlier summers were spent as a National Park Service seasonal Ranger Historian in Wyoming and Montana and in finishing a graduate degree at Middlebury College in Vermont. Poems were composed, over many years, usually on the backs of handy envelopes. Ironically, these poems with their western metaphors, got their first exposure in New England.He and his wife, Phyllis, now divide their time between Wyoming and Arizona.