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Dave Oliphant is widely considered the finest poetry critic ever produced by Texas. This volume brings together some 40 years of essays, articles, and reviews on the topic of Texas poetry -- its history as well as addressing individual poets and their books. Only one other book in the last two decades addressed the topic, and GENERATIONS OF TEXAS POETS is larger, more comprehensive, and of superior literary quality. In 1971, Larry McMurtry famously descried the lack of good Texas poetry; Oliphant has spent a lifetime nurturing it, publishing it, and has become its best critic.
Puerto Rican poets Anita Velez-Mitchell, daughter Gloria Vando, and granddaughter Anika Paris are featured in this poetry anthology edited by Linda Rodriguez.
Many books and essays have addressed the broad sweep of Texas music—its multicultural aspects, its wide array and blending of musical genres, its historical transformations, and its love/hate relationship with Nashville and other established music business centers. This book, however, focuses on an essential thread in this tapestry: the Texas singer-songwriters to whom the contributors refer as “ruthlessly poetic.” All songs require good lyrics, but for these songwriters, the poetic quality and substance of the lyrics are front and center. Obvious candidates for this category would include Townes Van Zandt, Michael Martin Murphey, Guy Clark, Steve Fromholz, Terry Allen, Kris Kristofferson, Vince Bell, and David Rodriguez. In a sense, what these songwriters were doing in small, intimate live-music venues like the Jester Lounge in Houston, the Chequered Flag in Austin, and the Rubaiyat in Dallas was similar to what Bob Dylan was doing in Greenwich Village. In the language of the times, these were “folksingers.” Unlike Dylan, however, these were folksingers writing songs about their own people and their own origins and singing in their own vernacular. This music, like most great poetry, is profoundly rooted. That rootedness, in fact, is reflected in the book’s emphasis on place and the powerful ways it shaped and continues to shape the poetry and music of Texas singer-songwriters. From the coffeehouses and folk clubs where many of the “founders” got their start to the Texas-flavored festivals and concerts that nurtured both their fame and the rise of a new generation, the indelible stamp of origins is inseparable from the work of these troubadour-poets. Please see the listing for the print edition to view the table of contents for this title.
Now it is my turn to stand. At Acoma Pueblo meetings, members rise and announce their intention to speak. In that moment they are recognized and heard. In Speaking for the Generations, Acoma Pueblo poet Simon Ortiz brings together contemporary Native American writers to take their turn. Each offers an evocation of herself or himself, describing the personal, social, and cultural influences on her or his development as a writer. Although each writer's viewpoint is personal and unique, together they reflect the rich tapestry of today's Native literature. Of varied backgrounds, the writers represent Indian heritages and cultures from the Pacific Northwest to the northern plains, from Canada to Guatemala. They are poets, novelists, and playwrights. And although their backgrounds are different and their statements intensely personal, they share common themes of their relationship to the land, to their ancestors, and to future generations of their people. From Gloria Bird's powerful recounting of personal and family history to Esther Belin's vibrant tale of her urban Native homeland in Los Angeles, these writers reveal the importance of place and politics in their lives. Leslie Marmon Silko calls upon the ancient tradition of Native American storytelling and its role in connecting the people to the land. Roberta J. Hill and Elizabeth Woody ponder some of the absurdities of contemporary Native life, while Guatemalan Victor Montejo takes readers to the Mayan world, where a native culture had writing and books long before Europeans came. Together these pieces offer an inspiring portrait of what it means to be a Native writer in the twentieth century. With passion and urgency, these writers are speaking for themselves, for their land, and for the generations.
For the past nine years, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands has been tweeting the history of the United States. But this has been no ordinary version of the American tale. Instead, Brands gives his 5,000-plus followers a regular dose of history and poetry combined: his tweets are in the form of haikus. Haiku History presents a selection of these smart, shrewd, and always informative short poems. “Shivers and specters / Flit over hearts in Salem / And so nineteen hang” describes the Salem Witch Trials, and “In angry war paint / Men board the British tea ships / And toss the cargo” depicts the Boston Tea Party. “Then an anarchist / Makes one of the war heroes / The next president” recalls the assassination of William McKinley and the ascension of Teddy Roosevelt to the presidency, while “Second invasion: / Iraq, where Saddam is still / In troubling control” returns us to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. As he travels from the thirteen colonies to the 2016 election, Brands brings to life the wars, economic crises, social policies, and other events that have shaped our nation. A history book like no other, Haiku History injects both fun and poetry into the story of America—three lines at a time.
The editors of Texas Monthly explore what it means to be a Texan in this anthology packed with essays, reportage, recipes, and recommendations from their renowned list of contributors. Big hats, big trucks, big oil fortunes—Texas clichés all. And while those elements do flourish throughout Texas, they alone hardly define the place. The Lone Star State is and has always been a great melting pot, home to sprawling cities, trailblazing innovators, and treasured traditions from all over, many of which become ingrained in popular culture and intertwined with the American ideal. In this collection, the editors of Texas Monthly take stock of their multifaceted, larger-than-life state, including the people, customs, land, culture, and cuisine that have collided and comingled here. Featuring essays, reportage, recipes, and recommendations from the magazine’s legendary roster of contributors, and accompanied by original drawings, Being Texan explores the landscapes that are home to more than 29 million people; the joys and idiosyncrasies of Texan life; underappreciated episodes of Texas history; and distinctive strains of Texan arts and culture. Illuminating, surprising, and entertaining, Being Texan reveals the Lone Star State in all its beauty, vastness, and complexity.
Poetry collection by Lupe Mendez, poet, teacher and activist. Why I Am Like Tequila is a collection of poetry spanning a decade of writing and performance. This collection exists in 4 parts - each a layered perspective, a look through a Mexican/ Mexican-American voice living in the Texas Gulf Coast. Set within spaces such as Galveston Island, Houston, the Rio Grande Valley and Jalisco, Mexico, these poems peel away at all parts, like the maguey, drawing to craft spirits, quenching a thirst between land and sea.
As Texas entered the 20th century, it was opening a new chapter in its cultural and social life. This text examines the contributions of literary societies and writers' clubs to the cultural and literary development that took place in Texas between the close of the frontier and the beginning of World War II.
Hard Damage works to relentlessly interrogate the self and its shortcomings. In lyric and documentary poems and essayistic fragments, Aria Aber explores the historical and personal implications of Afghan American relations. Drawing on material dating back to the 1950s, she considers the consequences of these relations--in particular the funding of the Afghan mujahedeen, which led to the Taliban and modern-day Islamic terrorism--for her family and the world at large. Invested in and suspicious of the pain of family and the shame of selfhood, the speakers of these richly evocative and musical poems mourn the magnitude of citizenship as a state of place and a state of mind. While Hard Damage is framed by free-verse poetry, the middle sections comprise a lyric essay in fragments and a long documentary poem. Aber explores Rilke in the original German, the urban melancholia of city life, inherited trauma, and displacement on both linguistic and environmental levels, while employing surrealist and eerily domestic imagery.