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Barnflower: A Rhode Island Farm Memoir
Osborndale Ivanhoe was a bull who became an unlikely celebrity. He defied e xpectations and challenged long-established notions of what constituted a champion Holstein. But his fame was dependent on one man’s stubborn insistence that the animal was, indeed, special. Carla Panciera spent years with her father and his famous herd traveling from county fair to county fair, and answering the same “Is that Aldo Panciera?” and “Are you Aldo’s daughter?” This memoir is based on the real man and his very real effort to make a living at what he loved. He was a demanding teacher and an unappeasable boss, but he was also a father who finished night milking and took his daughter for sled rides down a frozen hillside, or for a spin on the local carnival’s Ferris wheel, or who paused, plowing fields, to pick her the first wildflowers of the season. Barnflower is about a man and his work and what that life demanded of his family. Read about the bond between a father and daughter and their love for the kind of life they shared, a kind of life that is both a critical and a vanishing part of our history.
240 pages, Paperback
Published April 20, 2023
4 people are currently reading
24 people want to read
About the author
Carla Panciera
5 books20 followersAuthor of One of the Cimalores (Cider Press, 2005); No Day, No Dusk, No Love (Bordighera Press, 2010); Bewildered (The University of Massachusetts Press, 2014).
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
October 18, 2025
Full disclosure - this book was written by a friend of mine. Also full disclosure - I absolutely love the way she puts a sentence together. My mind's eye doesn't have to work to hard to picture the scenes she pens. Her love for her Dad is pure. And I am so bowled over by the life she lead on the farm, well before I met her as a published poet and high school english teacher. Way to go, Carla. You transported me to Westerly and I feel sad leaving.
January 27, 2026
Idyllic life with cows set in southeast New England this feels like it was written for me
September 30, 2023
Once in awhile I read a book that continues to live in me for awhile after I finish it. I think about the characters -- in this case parents, a daughter, and dairy cattle -- ask myself questions about them, and generally ponder what I have learned. Barnflower was definitely once of those books. I loved it and actually delayed reading the last couple of chapters because I didn't want the book to end. The writing is confident, assured, engaging, descriptive prose. The relationships seem true to life and the reader takes quite a rollercoaster ride through emotions. It was a really good read.
January 18, 2024
A book to savor and cherish. In beautifully evocative but lean prose, Carla Panciera chronicles her upbringing on a small Rhode Island dairy farm, and frankly depicts her adoring but not untroubled relationship to her family — most notably her father, a revered breeder of champion Holsteins — and to the demanding and vanishing way of life he embodied. Although the author admits in her acknowledgements that the stories are "partially fictionalized" for narrative effect, there can be no doubt that she has been faithful to the essential truths of her experiences, which strike the reader (at least this one) as deeply felt but unsentimental, and all the more moving for the restraint with which she recounts them. Carla Panciera is also an accomplished poet, which shows (in the best way) through her fine-grained attention to detail, her surprising but well-judged swerves of tone, her occasionally elliptical descriptions, and her nuanced but never obscure diction. The text might have benefited from a little more careful editing: since several of the chapters were first published as stand-alone essays, there are a few unnecessary and slightly jarring repetitions — but that's a very minor quibble about a superlative book.
March 25, 2024
Growing up on the South Shore of Boston, I lived close to a small dairy farm where we played as kids but had only the vaguest sense of what went on there. Reading Carla Panciera’s beautiful book Barnflower: A Rhode Island Farm Memoir is a revelation, a tender/tough account of the world of cows and bulls, milking parlors and cattle auctions, and the invisible systems which provide all of us with food. It’s also a touching portrait of a world now largely gone.
At heart, Barnflower is a tribute to the author’s family, especially her father. Aldo Panciera is a worthy subject. A World War II veteran, whose Italian immigrant grandparents bought a farm in Westerly, Rhode Island (“a place that was both beach and mill town”) in the early years of last century, Aldo eventually takes over its operation and in time becomes a legendary “cowman.” The author’s admiration of her father drives much of the book’s poignant narrative. In scene that occurs late in Aldo’s life, after he has retired and the farm has been sold, he has a yen to go to a cattle auction near Toronto. Although Panciera is busy with her own adult life at this point, nevertheless she accompanies him on the long drive. It’s a sentimental journey for both. She writes: “He rode quietly, sucked a Canada mint past rockless pastures, deep green valleys, the big-shouldered barns of upstate New York.”
The entire book is a journey of sorts, the product of 30-years visiting a place that “exists only in memory.” Each sentence unfolds so naturally, Panciera’s artistry all but invisible. But it is felt. It’s there in her selection of crisp, telling detail, where nothing escapes notice. It is revealed in the subtle emotional weather of life in a large New England family.
The narrative, rendered in a desultory—often lyrical—fashion, is comprised of nineteen (one hesitates to say) chapters because they work as standalone episodes in the larger unfolding story. In fact, a number of them have previously appeared in literary magazines. As they go on they begin to meld to create that most compelling of through-lines: the need to know what happens next.
The writer’s details are sharp. We see the way a cow flicks her ears and flares nostrils “pinpricked with condensation.” The growing narrator, navigating childhood and then adolescence “with all its cataclysmic shifts in emotion” is uncertain of herself, at one point listening to Pablo Cruise and feeling the sting when a woman several years more sophisticated (and an imagined rival for her father’s attention), remarks: “Oh no… I’ve got to get you some records.”
In adulthood an award-winning poet and short story writer, Panciera provides occasional glimpses of a younger self in the company of imaginary friends, or her beloved dog, relishing solitude among the corn rows, or observing life through the loft window of the barn. There’s the internal, emotional weather of the family that the external weather where “wind howled around the silos, threaded through the house’s old windows to riffle curtains.”
Imbued at times with an Edenic quality, farm life is not sentimentalized. There are the incessant needs of the farm animals, the hard labor, the flies, the odors, the sometimes-dangerous accidents . . . but these are taken in turn and balanced as part of the fullness, the entirety of life.
Long gone now, the farm haunted the author’s imagination for thirty years and now, here is its story. Emily Dickinson told us “There is no Frigate like a Book/ To take us Lands away.” Barnflower is such a book.
At heart, Barnflower is a tribute to the author’s family, especially her father. Aldo Panciera is a worthy subject. A World War II veteran, whose Italian immigrant grandparents bought a farm in Westerly, Rhode Island (“a place that was both beach and mill town”) in the early years of last century, Aldo eventually takes over its operation and in time becomes a legendary “cowman.” The author’s admiration of her father drives much of the book’s poignant narrative. In scene that occurs late in Aldo’s life, after he has retired and the farm has been sold, he has a yen to go to a cattle auction near Toronto. Although Panciera is busy with her own adult life at this point, nevertheless she accompanies him on the long drive. It’s a sentimental journey for both. She writes: “He rode quietly, sucked a Canada mint past rockless pastures, deep green valleys, the big-shouldered barns of upstate New York.”
The entire book is a journey of sorts, the product of 30-years visiting a place that “exists only in memory.” Each sentence unfolds so naturally, Panciera’s artistry all but invisible. But it is felt. It’s there in her selection of crisp, telling detail, where nothing escapes notice. It is revealed in the subtle emotional weather of life in a large New England family.
The narrative, rendered in a desultory—often lyrical—fashion, is comprised of nineteen (one hesitates to say) chapters because they work as standalone episodes in the larger unfolding story. In fact, a number of them have previously appeared in literary magazines. As they go on they begin to meld to create that most compelling of through-lines: the need to know what happens next.
The writer’s details are sharp. We see the way a cow flicks her ears and flares nostrils “pinpricked with condensation.” The growing narrator, navigating childhood and then adolescence “with all its cataclysmic shifts in emotion” is uncertain of herself, at one point listening to Pablo Cruise and feeling the sting when a woman several years more sophisticated (and an imagined rival for her father’s attention), remarks: “Oh no… I’ve got to get you some records.”
In adulthood an award-winning poet and short story writer, Panciera provides occasional glimpses of a younger self in the company of imaginary friends, or her beloved dog, relishing solitude among the corn rows, or observing life through the loft window of the barn. There’s the internal, emotional weather of the family that the external weather where “wind howled around the silos, threaded through the house’s old windows to riffle curtains.”
Imbued at times with an Edenic quality, farm life is not sentimentalized. There are the incessant needs of the farm animals, the hard labor, the flies, the odors, the sometimes-dangerous accidents . . . but these are taken in turn and balanced as part of the fullness, the entirety of life.
Long gone now, the farm haunted the author’s imagination for thirty years and now, here is its story. Emily Dickinson told us “There is no Frigate like a Book/ To take us Lands away.” Barnflower is such a book.
April 14, 2024
Across the street from my little window, the church bells rang, on and off for longer than usual, as if a child had pulled them. The sound echoes through the woods along with the thunder coming over nearby hills. They remind me of the clang of joy and longing I felt reading—and hearing Carla read—the first few essays that were to become Barnflower. It’s hard to describe without using too many words and an overkill of emotionalism, what I felt, but I knew, immediately, that this was art with a capital A. The kind that Emily Dickinson described as offering the physical feeling of the top of one’s head being removed.
Carla and I were sitting in our cramped room, on, as their website describes “Bread Loaf campus of Middlebury College, in the Green Mountains of Vermont and under the shadow of Bread Loaf Mountain.” We had just met and were preparing for our first, nerve-wracking reading as scholars. She sat on the foot of her bed and I sat on a hard chair facing her. As she read, I was taken right out of that room. The walls collapsed and I was standing in a barn, my face pressed into the rough side of a warm and shifting cow, dusty beams of light falling over my shoulder. I wish I could remember exactly which chapter Carla read, but now that I have read Barnflower so many times, the whole collection feels like that stunning moment. It is absolutely a book that you can’t put down. A book you want to read again and again.
I understand that I sound hyperbolic, and I do tend that direction with things I love, but this is not that. I am reporting an experience seldom felt. This book is rare and beautiful. It has been described as “luminous,” “ a love letter,” “tough and unflinching, “lyrical,”“gritty,” “inevitable.” Yes! It is all of that. But it is also, for me, a look into the life of a precious friend and a fulfillment of my own childhood longing to spend intense and meaningful time with animals and nature. And a hard reminder of what that life really means.
I can’t write an intellectual or even linear review of this book because it has had such varying and emotional impact on me, both as a pleasure reader and an editor. And there are so many reviews that describe and extol this book better than I ever could.
But I can try: Everyone needs to read this book. It should be required reading in schools and universities. It needs to be not on a shelf, but in hands.
A no-nonsense song of everyday life, of hard work and deep love, of what ties us to a place and how we must learn to live when that place only exists in our memories, each story stands alone as a verse. Each story connects to the next with a thematic refrain. The clean writing is never saccharine or cloying in any way. Carla’s attention to detail—to the golden tassel of a just-scrubbed cow tail, the damp eyelashes and black-hourglass muzzle of a newborn calf, the sun shafts falling in pools on the cement barn floor, the baby-shampoo-and-milk smell of the farm dog Jewel’s silky ears, the darkening edges of a gash in her father’s leg, the sneeze and snort of calves during vitamin administration—holds readers in each scene. You can’t look away even when you want to. It is a tearjerker. A comedy. A play Shakespearean in its scope. More importantly, Barnflower is a study in class, economics, work ethics, childhood, and grief. It is political, historical, philosophical, and psychological in the way the greatest literature is—wrapped in a tender, aching, romance of history, memory, and the constancy of loss. It will ring and reverberate in you forever.
Carla and I were sitting in our cramped room, on, as their website describes “Bread Loaf campus of Middlebury College, in the Green Mountains of Vermont and under the shadow of Bread Loaf Mountain.” We had just met and were preparing for our first, nerve-wracking reading as scholars. She sat on the foot of her bed and I sat on a hard chair facing her. As she read, I was taken right out of that room. The walls collapsed and I was standing in a barn, my face pressed into the rough side of a warm and shifting cow, dusty beams of light falling over my shoulder. I wish I could remember exactly which chapter Carla read, but now that I have read Barnflower so many times, the whole collection feels like that stunning moment. It is absolutely a book that you can’t put down. A book you want to read again and again.
I understand that I sound hyperbolic, and I do tend that direction with things I love, but this is not that. I am reporting an experience seldom felt. This book is rare and beautiful. It has been described as “luminous,” “ a love letter,” “tough and unflinching, “lyrical,”“gritty,” “inevitable.” Yes! It is all of that. But it is also, for me, a look into the life of a precious friend and a fulfillment of my own childhood longing to spend intense and meaningful time with animals and nature. And a hard reminder of what that life really means.
I can’t write an intellectual or even linear review of this book because it has had such varying and emotional impact on me, both as a pleasure reader and an editor. And there are so many reviews that describe and extol this book better than I ever could.
But I can try: Everyone needs to read this book. It should be required reading in schools and universities. It needs to be not on a shelf, but in hands.
A no-nonsense song of everyday life, of hard work and deep love, of what ties us to a place and how we must learn to live when that place only exists in our memories, each story stands alone as a verse. Each story connects to the next with a thematic refrain. The clean writing is never saccharine or cloying in any way. Carla’s attention to detail—to the golden tassel of a just-scrubbed cow tail, the damp eyelashes and black-hourglass muzzle of a newborn calf, the sun shafts falling in pools on the cement barn floor, the baby-shampoo-and-milk smell of the farm dog Jewel’s silky ears, the darkening edges of a gash in her father’s leg, the sneeze and snort of calves during vitamin administration—holds readers in each scene. You can’t look away even when you want to. It is a tearjerker. A comedy. A play Shakespearean in its scope. More importantly, Barnflower is a study in class, economics, work ethics, childhood, and grief. It is political, historical, philosophical, and psychological in the way the greatest literature is—wrapped in a tender, aching, romance of history, memory, and the constancy of loss. It will ring and reverberate in you forever.
June 1, 2024
Barnflower by Carla Panciera is a heartfelt and evocative collection of stories that transports readers to her childhood on a dairy farm in Westerly, Rhode Island. Panciera's vivid characterization of her parents, siblings, and childhood friends brings each person to life, making the reader feel like a part of her family. Her depiction of her father and their relationship is particularly touching, showcasing the deep bond between them. Panciera has a great ability to highlight the unique personalities of the cows on the farm, revealing their quirks and charms. Her storytelling prowess shines through in every tale, painting a rich, immersive picture of farm life. The imagery of the farm and the surrounding area is beautifully detailed, making it easy to visualize and feel the essence of Westerly. Carla Panciera is a fantastic storyteller, and her love for her family and the farm is palpable on every page. Barnflower is not just a memoir but a loving tribute to a way of life and the people and animals that shaped it.
July 2, 2023
Barnflower: A Rhode Island Farm Memoir
I loved these modern New England farm stories. These are no Little House Prairie tales but there is a hardworking Farmer Dad with a Writer Daughter who lays it all out. This Italian-American version of farm life is funny, quirky and filled with vivid characters. Who knew that cows have personalities! The beautifully written stories are great for bite-sized beach reads or to settle in to make the journey to the farm and back. You may need your hankie handy for the moments that Carla Panciera gets underneath the complicated emotions of dads and daughters.
I loved these modern New England farm stories. These are no Little House Prairie tales but there is a hardworking Farmer Dad with a Writer Daughter who lays it all out. This Italian-American version of farm life is funny, quirky and filled with vivid characters. Who knew that cows have personalities! The beautifully written stories are great for bite-sized beach reads or to settle in to make the journey to the farm and back. You may need your hankie handy for the moments that Carla Panciera gets underneath the complicated emotions of dads and daughters.
May 11, 2023
Barnflower, A Rhode Island Farm Memoir is an interesting story about a man’s love and struggle to live the farm life he loved raising his cows in Rhode Island, the impact the lifestyle had on his family and a disappearing part of our history. Author Carla Panciera’s strong writing style kept me turning the pages as she wove the tale of the triumphs and hardships of running a dairy farm and the close bond she shared with her father. The wonderful descriptions made me feel like I was seeing the farm and surroundings through her eyes as she grew from a young child to an adult. A most enjoyable read.
October 27, 2024
Just finished Carla Panciera’s memoir BARNFLOWER about the Rhode Island family dairy farm on which Carla grew up and worked beside her father. This book that touches on 4-H is full of way more than four H’s: heart, humor, hard work, hurt, history, hired hands, holding areas, hay, halters, herds, hurricanes, homework, homemade ravioli, highballs, Holsteins, harvests, horns, heifers, and “honey” - as in the term of endearment from father to daughter. I love how Panciera braids her stories and look with clear-eyed tenderness and honesty at the way of life that shaped her, at family and friendship and coming of age, and at being the daughter of such an indelible father and mother.
October 10, 2023
I love this book! Reading Carla Panciera's memoir made me want to pick up a pen and start exploring my own childhood in writing. She made me think about how it's the little things that matter - the breeze in the trees, the sunlight on the grass, the sound of the cows in the barn, the weathered buildings. I was only a few chapters in when I realized I had to spend more time with cows. They are magical! But it's the bond between family members and her inspirational father that made me laugh and cry while reading. I couldn't put it down! Thanks for showing me a new world!
November 9, 2023
Really enjoyed this memoir - Fascinating, funny (and sometimes harrowing!) tales of life growing up on a dairy farm. I loved the vivid stories, the insight into the larger world of dairy farming, and the relationship that the author had with each of her colorful parents.
October 29, 2023
I loved this book! What a wonderful tribute, not only to a father-daughter relationship but to a way of life not easily found anymore.
February 14, 2025
Made it almost halfway and could go no further.
July 8, 2025
Wonderful writing, memories of close family relationships on a farm in RI. I LOVED this book!
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews