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Dead Horses
Life on a small midwestern farm is the genesis of many of the poems in DEAD HORSES. Unsentimental and realistic, they celebrate an enduring involvement with horses (riding, breeding, foaling, and racing) and offer a tough-minded look at the vagaries of rural existence.
- GenresPoetry
58 pages, Paperback
First published August 12, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 29, 2012
‘Dead Horses’ is only an excuse. It’s an excuse to create a collection of extremely powerful poems set against the background of rural life in general and horse farming in Northern Illinois in particular. The more I read of Joan Colby’s work, the more I’d buy any one of her anthologies blind. Colby is dark, passionate, observant, emphatic and one of the most gifted and prolific poets of our generation. ‘Dead Horses’ is another Colby MUST HAVE and will surprise you with its power.
September 19, 2012
Those who live with animals live close to the raw truths of existence—living, suffering, death. Farmers are tied to the earth in similar elemental ways. In this book of poems Joan Colby pulls no punches. These are hard-hitting poems, yet they are graced by a use of language that is both surprising and beautiful.
December 11, 2012
In Dead Horses, her tenth collection of poetry, Joan Colby offers 26 poems focusing on death and loss within agrarian settings. As the collection’s title suggests, horses will be a motif in the book. The collection opens with the title poem structured in the demanding form of the sestina. Of special note are the words Colby chooses to repeat: dream, horses, bleak, light, lace, winter. While she takes some liberties with the repetition of these words, the poem functions as an overture, announcing the subjects and themes of poems to come, and when the collection is read from beginning to end a musical continuity is obvious.
One might initially suspect that with such a title, the mood of the book is bleak, dealing as it does with these sorrowful subjects; however, these poems do not give the impression of hopelessness and futility. The attitude regarding death is one of acceptance of a natural process, even when death results from accidental means, as several poems recount such instances. As anyone who has spent any time on a farm knows, death is a regular part of life.
In any poetry collection, certain poems stand out because of their well-executed composition and powerful effect. In Dead Horses, Colby is at her best in the longer poems: “Dead Horses,” “The Lunar Year,” “Farming,” and “Two Deaths.” These four poems alone provide depth and complexity that invite multiple readings for the audience to savor the poetic experience. “Lunar Year,” in particular, is an ambitious poem in twelve sections, with each section containing the word moon preceded by a modifier. This is not to say, however, that the “shorter” poems are somehow weaker; all of the poems carry their own weight, achieve their distinction. The poems do not blur together but rather contribute to an overall effect of profundity.
While writing tightly crafted poems with a precision that fellow poets will no doubt appreciate, Colby also creates poems that are readable for a broader audience, even for those less familiar with some of the agrarian subjects and settings. In this book, the following adage is true: specificity generates universality. Dead Horses is ultimately a collection that demonstrates excellence without sacrificing accessibility.
Highly recommended.
One might initially suspect that with such a title, the mood of the book is bleak, dealing as it does with these sorrowful subjects; however, these poems do not give the impression of hopelessness and futility. The attitude regarding death is one of acceptance of a natural process, even when death results from accidental means, as several poems recount such instances. As anyone who has spent any time on a farm knows, death is a regular part of life.
In any poetry collection, certain poems stand out because of their well-executed composition and powerful effect. In Dead Horses, Colby is at her best in the longer poems: “Dead Horses,” “The Lunar Year,” “Farming,” and “Two Deaths.” These four poems alone provide depth and complexity that invite multiple readings for the audience to savor the poetic experience. “Lunar Year,” in particular, is an ambitious poem in twelve sections, with each section containing the word moon preceded by a modifier. This is not to say, however, that the “shorter” poems are somehow weaker; all of the poems carry their own weight, achieve their distinction. The poems do not blur together but rather contribute to an overall effect of profundity.
While writing tightly crafted poems with a precision that fellow poets will no doubt appreciate, Colby also creates poems that are readable for a broader audience, even for those less familiar with some of the agrarian subjects and settings. In this book, the following adage is true: specificity generates universality. Dead Horses is ultimately a collection that demonstrates excellence without sacrificing accessibility.
Highly recommended.
March 15, 2018
We are the publisher, so all of our authors get five stars from us. Excerpts:
OX TEAM AT GARFIELD FARM
Paired shortly after birth.
By two months bearing
The smallest yoke,
Learning the commands
Which nigh ox and off ox
Understand differently,
Always the same position,
Yoked or stalled.
Nigh ox to the right.
Off ox to the left.
Long horns intact
To keep the wooden yoke
In place. Controlled
By voice or motion.
Obedient and calm, their huge
Bodies compliant to plow,
Wagon, or log chain.
The ox driver points out
What fables those Westerns were:
Wagon trains circling
Their handsome horse hitches.
It was oxen
That opened the west,
Able to live on almost nothing,
To unmoor the mired cart,
Plod all day in patience.
No special breed, just
Cattle that were taught
To work. These two are ruddy
And boxlike with fleshy ivory nostrils
And the placid eyes of servants.
Each has one horntip screwed with brass.
Each has a name: Nigh Ox—Off Ox.
They think as an ensemble,
Mirror images of toil.
If one dies, the other is useless.
ROADKILL
Dead skunk on the road.
One hundred degrees, the stink is bad.
The county should be out
To scrape it up, but after two days
We take our shovels to it.
Traveling north, another skunk
Creased in the highway. Twin kittens
Pawing helplessly at her.
The kids beg us to stop.
We explain why not and drive on.
Everywhere are deer, muskrats,
Raccoons, possums, cats, even birds
Flying too low or alighting
On something already killed,
Blacktop littered as if
Figments of imagination
Had spun off to sizzle
Under a July sun.
Anesthetized, we hardly comprehend
What these clumps of fur and sinew were,
And we don’t much care.
Not like the man, a week ago,
Who, seeing ducklings on the tollway,
Left his car running and rushed
To their rescue. He was hit
Almost at once, then hit again.
Roadkill. Today, a smear
Greyish, flattened. We keep going.
OX TEAM AT GARFIELD FARM
Paired shortly after birth.
By two months bearing
The smallest yoke,
Learning the commands
Which nigh ox and off ox
Understand differently,
Always the same position,
Yoked or stalled.
Nigh ox to the right.
Off ox to the left.
Long horns intact
To keep the wooden yoke
In place. Controlled
By voice or motion.
Obedient and calm, their huge
Bodies compliant to plow,
Wagon, or log chain.
The ox driver points out
What fables those Westerns were:
Wagon trains circling
Their handsome horse hitches.
It was oxen
That opened the west,
Able to live on almost nothing,
To unmoor the mired cart,
Plod all day in patience.
No special breed, just
Cattle that were taught
To work. These two are ruddy
And boxlike with fleshy ivory nostrils
And the placid eyes of servants.
Each has one horntip screwed with brass.
Each has a name: Nigh Ox—Off Ox.
They think as an ensemble,
Mirror images of toil.
If one dies, the other is useless.
ROADKILL
Dead skunk on the road.
One hundred degrees, the stink is bad.
The county should be out
To scrape it up, but after two days
We take our shovels to it.
Traveling north, another skunk
Creased in the highway. Twin kittens
Pawing helplessly at her.
The kids beg us to stop.
We explain why not and drive on.
Everywhere are deer, muskrats,
Raccoons, possums, cats, even birds
Flying too low or alighting
On something already killed,
Blacktop littered as if
Figments of imagination
Had spun off to sizzle
Under a July sun.
Anesthetized, we hardly comprehend
What these clumps of fur and sinew were,
And we don’t much care.
Not like the man, a week ago,
Who, seeing ducklings on the tollway,
Left his car running and rushed
To their rescue. He was hit
Almost at once, then hit again.
Roadkill. Today, a smear
Greyish, flattened. We keep going.
October 13, 2013
Dark, resonating poetry. Read it.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews