Words of a Prairie Alchemist

by Denise Low

Explores the language of the prairie. The Great Plains of the North American continent have dramatic seasons, intense colors, otherworldly thunderstorms, and epic winters. Denise Low has emerged as one of the most trusted writers of this region. With a balance of drama and finesse, she describes the juncture between the natural world and the human realm of literature.

144 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2006

Reviews

[Bob Sommer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fine collection that brings together essays, poems, interviews, and journal entries by past Kansas Poet Laureate Denise Low. At the heart of these writings are the inextricable connections between language and place. For Low, those ties bind her poetically to Kansas, its geography, and most particularly the language and traditions of the people who lived here for thousands of years before Europeans appeared. This is a thoughtful book and should provoke fresh thinking about the sources and nature of literature and language itself.

[Sherry · Rating 4 out of 5]

My second cousin (we share common great-grandparents) sent me this book a year ago as it was part of class she attended and culminated in a poem she wrote about our common great-grandmother. It took me this past year to get around to reading it but having just finished it...I am sending her heart-felt gratitude for her kind act. I can't say that I'm a fan of poetry (and really didn't think I would be a fan of a book about poetry and poets) but this little book was packed with insights, nostalgia and quirks. First, I wondered why the author (and/or printer) put a little arch over every word in the book that contained a connected "ct" . I learned new words like "solipsism", unknown authors like "Sappho" and new ways to think about where I grew up. I learned that books that sell the most in bookstores are from the "Regional" section, anything about Jesse James and cookbooks. I also realized that there are different types of poems...sonnets, ellegies, prose, quatrains, tercets, rap...just to list a few. 127 pages of something I hadn't thought about before.