Grass Songs: Poems of Women's Journey West

by Ann Turner

A collection of seventeen poems describing the experience of traveling West during the 1800s, as seen through the eyes of pioneer women.

Genres: Poetry

52 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Ann Turner, also known and published as Ann Warren Turner, is a children's author and a poet.
Ann Turner wrote her first story when she was eight years old. It was about a dragon and a dwarf named Puckity. She still uses that story when she talks to students about writing, to show them that they too have stories worth telling.
Turner has always loved to write, but at first she was afraid she couldn't make a living doing it. So she trained to be a teacher instead. After a year of teaching, however, she decided she would rather write books than talk about them in school.
Turner's first children's book was about vultures and was illustrated by her mother. She has written more than 40 books since then, most of them historical picture books. She likes to think of a character in a specific time and place in American history and then tell a story about that character so that readers today can know what it was like to live long ago.
Ann Turner says that stories choose her, rather than the other way around: "I often feel as if I am walking along quietly, minding my own business, when a story creeps up behind me and taps me on the shoulder. 'Tell me, show me, write me!' it whispers in my ear. And if I don't tell that story, it wakes me up in the morning, shakes me out of my favorite afternoon nap, and insists upon being told."

(from: http://www.eduplace.com/kids/tnc/mtai...)

Reviews

[Em · Rating 5 out of 5]

This slim volume I had picked up fairly recently but it connects very strongly to two other books I have owned for a long while and only skimmed. In fact one of the poems was taken from a story related in one of those books 'Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey" of a woman called Olive Oatman. She had been captured by Apaches, who sold her to Mojaves and wed to one and bore him children, then recaptured by Anglos. She was never fully accepted back in 'polite' company due to tatoos on her face and because she repeatedly tried to return to her Mojave family. But I had several other favorite poems, one called 'Married Now' of a wedding done on the trail westward and a honeymoon night in the back of a covered wagon. One called 'Amanda Hayes' of a spirited gal who carried a copy of 'The Odyssey' on her journey and who liked to dance naked under the stars dreaming of a passionate god like lover who would touch her as her husband never had. And although they aren't among my favorites, two tinged with sadness made a deep mark in my mind: 'Let There Be' starts "I'd give my soul for a pot of tea" and laments on and on of all the things missed at home. And the other, 'No Time Enough' was of a young woman giving birth to her first child in the back of a wagon as it rolled on. The men of the expedition refusing to stop to allow her time to give birth in peace and how she and the babe die. To read these poems on such a historic day seemed particularly apt.

[Maughn Gregory · Rating 5 out of 5]

These poems tell the brutality, heartache, violence, and thrill of the 19th-Century western migration from the very particular voices of number of white women - some of whom could have been my ancestors. Based on true stories and illustrated by the incomparable Barry Moser, this was one of the luckiest second-hand bookstore finds in a long time.

[Elyza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful poems and lovely illustrations, I want to own this book! It really felt like Ann Turner was recording these women's thoughts and dreams. She made me want to read more about pioneer women.

[Sharon Bollen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of poems all on the theme of Pioneer Women, inspired by the lives and journals of real women. Many of whom found themselves thrust into journeys not of their own choosing experiencing hardship, loss, captivity all gathered here in verse. A thoughtful and poignant collection.
Another secondhand find, if books could talk I wonder how this little book made it's way across a continent and ocean to end up on the Isle of Wight, UK.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I do not read poetry, but had a review about this book. When I was younger (pre-teen, teen) I used to think I wanted to be a pioneer woman. WOW! shows how ignorant and naive I was! These poems clearly point out the difficulty of being a women pioneer.