Wild Wind: Poems and Stories Inspired by the Songs of Robert Earl Keen

by Ron Cooper (editor), Sandra Johnson Cooper (editor)

This anthology of poems and short stories is an homage to Texas singer/song-writer Robert Earl Keen, who stands in the songwriter/storyteller tradition of Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, John Prine, and Keen’s contemporaries Lyle Lovett and James McMurtry. The poems and short stories here are each inspired by Keen’s songs, some expansions of themes of Keen’s songs, others move in creative directions suggested by the characters in his work. Keen’s songs are impressive for their literary sensibility (he was an English major at Texas A&M University) and have influenced many songwriters as well as authors of fiction and poetry.

143 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 19, 2024

About the author

Ron Cooper's novel, Hume's Fork, was called by author Ron Rash "one of the funniest novels I've read in a long time" and described by Rebecca Goldstein as a "mix of zaniness and erudition, satire and insight." His new novel, Purple Jesus, will appear in September 2010. He is a South Carolina native who moved to Florida in 1988 and teaches at the College of Central Florida. Cooper has a BA from the College of Charleston, an MA from the University of South Carolina, and a Ph.D. from Rutgers University. He is also the author of a number of philosophical works, including Heidegger and Whitehead: A Phenomenological Examination into the Intelligibility of Experience."

Reviews

[Michael Cody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wild Wind is a wonderful little volume reflecting the rich diversity of songs in the extensive catalog of singer-songwriter Robert Earl Keen. Each piece of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction is triggered by a different Keen composition. The authors included in Wild Wind burst from their individual starting blocks and run with Keen's lyric inspiration--some run straight from start to finish while others swerve out of their lanes in new and exciting directions. Keen's songs are the beating heart of the anthology--as foundation, as engine, as inspiration. If you're already a fan of Robert Earl Keen, you'll find some pieces based on those songs that tend to be favorites, but even fans will, I think, be surprised and pleased by some of the obscure catalog gems the Wild Wind writers and editors take for their subjects.