Hoofprints: Horse Poems

by Jessie Haas

Complete with an overview of horse history and a glossary, a comprehensive poetry collection provides readers with diverse tales about the evolution of horses from the beginning of time, from the eohippus to the Thoroughbred.

Genres: Poetry, Horses

Hardcover

First published March 1, 2004

About the author

Jessie Haas has written over 35 books for children and adults, many about horses--a lifelong passion. She currently owns a Morgan mare, Robin, who is being clicker-trained to be a trail and pasture-dressage horse. She lives in a small, off-grid house in the woods with husband Michael J. Daley, two cats and a dog. When not writing or riding or reading she likes to knit, cook, and write, or ride, or read.

Reviews

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I disliked half the poems in this collection, and loved the other half. It's a jumble to be honest. The idea for most of them is quite interesting, using historic points to set the poems in. It also covers a wide range of the globe in terms of horse culture.

[Donna Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

April is National Poetry month, so I chose a variety of books this month which celebrate poetry. This is a book of horse poems that gives the history of the horse from earliest to present, all in verse! What a creative way to learn history. And to celebrate the horse! Definitely a fun read for the horse lover and an informative one for the one who admires them from afar.

[Nadina · Rating 3 out of 5]

These were interesting poems, and they were easy to read, but over all it just felt average for poetry. Perhaps it is that the writing style did not appeal to me, or that the topic wasn't right for me.
The poems weren't bad, and I found the history element of the poems interesting, they just lacked that connection I seek in poetry.
Average over all.

[Ms. Patterson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I probably should not even have attempted to read this, since I'm not at all interested in horses. I think someone who loves horses might like it for the author attempts to tell the history of horses and their uses in the world through poetry. It was just boring to me.

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jessie Haas, Hoofprints: Horse Poems (Harper Collins, 2004)

I have a weakness for all things horse, and I love poetry, so this was a no-brainer when I saw it at the used bookstore. I have to say, I give a lot more slack to all things horse than I do to all things poetry, and I was kind of hoping-- since I take it as a given that all single-author poetry collections that revolve around a specific subject are going to be substandard poetry-- that my inner editor's laxity about horses would carry over to horse poetry. Alas, it was not to be. I love the history in here, and the research Jessie Haas did in preparing to write this book. I am somewhat less enthusiastic about the end result.

Poetry is that art of “show, don't tell” distilled, a medium where every word, every syllable, should be laden (and/or pregnant) with meaning, where description needs to be pared away like the white of an orange, and for much the same reason-- if you cook with it, it will give the whole dish a bitter, unappealing taste. Far too many poets don't understand this. (And mentioning it gives me a change to beat my favorite dead horse, W. D. Snodgrass' wonderful book De/Compositions, which shows this better than I ever could, and which should be required reading for all poets, aspiring, pro, or in between.) Haas is one of them:

“I want you to know that history is not what you have been told.
You have been asked to pledge allegiance to certain facts,
And that is a misuse of schooling, to teach you only phrases,
A lulling rhythm to rock your mind to sleep.”
(“Is That So?”)

Those of you who have been reading my reviews for the past twenty years are well-used to my charge of “that's not poetry, that's political screed chopped up into little lines.” So I don't even have to get up on that soapbox again, I'm sure.

This is not to say that the whole book is scraping the bottom of that particular barrel; when Haas gets her mind around an image, she does know what to do with it. There are a few pieces in here that are really workable. If you're not a horse fanatic, though, you're probably going to find yourself slogging through too many swine to get to far too few (for a 200-page book, roughly two and a half times as long as the usual single-author non- “selected” or “collected” book of poetry) pearls. **

[Krista the Krazy Kataloguer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting history of the horse and its relationship with people told in a series of poems.