A Poetic Celebration of Horses

This week I received my contributor’s copy of Cadence of Hooves: A Celebration of Horses (Yarroway Mountain Press), a poetry anthology edited by Susan Jantz that includes one of my poems, “Above Beaver Creek, Colorado.” The volume presents nearly 300 works of poetry depicting scenes or events involving horses by an impressive array of contemporary poets. In the anthology’s introduction, Yantz informs readers:

Throughout history, horses of legend and real life have served as mediums between the spirit and material worlds. And, unlike cats or dogs, to which similar extrasensory attributes are often given, horses reputedly carry their riders between the seen and unseen realms and hold the power to lead humans to forms of lost knowledge.

Preliterate petroglyphs, pictographs, and other artifacts remain as testament that the horse has inhabited cultural human experience throughout millennia. Horses have been with us in war, in work, in leisure, in sport, in symbol, and in all manner of art.

The generous collection of poems in Cadence of Hooves: A Celebration of Horses, which extends almost 500 pages, is handsomely presented and contains a number of familiar favorites for me, such as Maxine Kumin’s “Jack,” Joy Harjo’s “She Had Some Horses,” Larry Levis’s “There Are Two Worlds,” C.K. Williams’s “Gas,” David Baker’s “October Storm,” Gregory Orr’s “Horses,” Henry Taylor’s “Riding a One-Eyed Horse,” and Robert Wrigley’s “Kissing a Horse,” just to name a small group. In addition, I located some poems I hadn’t known previously or had forgotten among those by authors with whom I am fairly well acquainted. I also discovered more than a few fine new poets from whom I look forward to reading more work.

The publisher's publicity notice describes the gathering of poetry:

The collection celebrates the enduring presence of horses in our lives. Contributors masterfully offer us entry into the world of the physical—heart warming as well as heartbreaking—and the metaphysical and magical realms in which horses play a significant role.

Horses show up in these selections through a wide range of written forms from litanies, elegies, odes, pantoums, sestinas, blank verse, and sonnets to free verse in both lyrical and narrative styles.

We hear the far-reaching voices of female, male, cowboy, novice, farrier, knacker, veterinarian, jockey, stable hand, parent, child, wife, husband, lover, and more—brought to us through poets who intelligently and artfully explore diverse perspectives on the venerable and long-standing relationship between horses and humans.

The complete list of poets contributing work to Cadence of Hooves: A Celebration of Horses: David Baker, Judith Barrington, Robin Becker, Margo Berdeshevsky, Stephen Black, Jonathan Blake, Linda Blaskey, Barbara Bloom, Deborah Bogen, Don Bogen, Alan Botsford, Kevin Boyle, Allen Braden, Lisa Brown, Michael Dennis Browne, J. V. Brummels, Louella Bryant, Elizabeth Wade Buckalew, Michael Burns, Grace Butcher, Edward Byrne, Cyrus Cassells, Grace Cavalieri, Sonya Hess Chamberlin, Tom Christopher, Jeanne E. Clark, Brad Comann, Star Coulbrooke, Darla K. Crist, Mary Crow, Claire Davis, Cortney Davis, Jon Davis, Todd Davis, Mark Defoe, Gregory Djanikian, Sharon Doubiago, Sean Dougherty, Chris Drangle, Barbara Drake, George Drew, Felicia Dubois, Denise Duhamel, Rebecca Dunham, Susan Elbe, Karl Elder, Margot Farrington, Annie Finch, Deborah Fleming, C. B. Follett, Alice Friman, James Galvin, Christine Gelineau, Danielle Georges, Rebecca Kaiser Gibson, Benjamin Gotschall, Tzivia N. Gover, Alice Wirth Gray, Coppie Green, Gabe Gudding, Catherine Hardy, Joy Harjo, James Harms, Jana Harris, Lola Haskins, Wendell Hawken, Julie Hensley, William Heyen, Michael Hicks, Jane Hirshfield, Elizabyth Hiscox, Peter Huggins, Austin Hummell, Mark Irwin, Carrie Jerrell, William Johnson, Ilya Kaminsky, Ellen Chavez Kelley, Robert Morris Kennedy, Willie James King, Kathryn Kirkpatrick, John Kooistra, Josephine Koster, Judith Krause, Jeri Kroll, Maxine Kumin, Lance Larsen, Kerry Lawrynovicz, Dorianne Laux, Donna J. Gelagotis Lee, Joseph Leff, Ken Letko, Lisa Lewis, George Looney, Jacqueline M. Loring, Christiane Marks, Beverly Matherne, Gail Mazur, Linda McCarriston, Pamela McClure, Ron McFarland, Valerie Mejer, Ann E. Michael, Jen Michaels, Joseph Millar, Nathaniel Miles Millard, Judith Montgomery, Peter A. Nash, Charles Nauman, Sheila Nickerson, Biljana Obradovic, Carole Simmons Oles, Gregory Orr, Sarah Pape, Joy Passanante, Oliver de la Paz, Molly Peacock, C. E. Perry, Natalie Peeterse, Roger Pfsingston, Donald Platt, Ruth Porritt, Marnie Prange, Noah Raizman, Tony Reevy, Bethany Reid, James Richardson, Alberto Ríos, Anele Rubin, Benjamin Russell, Floyd Salas, Michael Salcman, Mark E. Sanders, Jeannine Savard, Maggie Schwed, Vivian Shipley, Sue Sinclair, Anita Skeen, Judith Skillman, Hannah Stein, Barry Sternlieb, Margo Stever, Leon Stokesbury, David Surette, Pablo Tanguay, Stephen Tapscott, Henry Taylor, Elaine Terranova, Diane Thiel, Matthew Thorburn, Georgia Tiffany, Annie Tobin, Daniel Tobin, J. C. Todd, Alison Townsend, Robert Tremmel, Eric Trethewey, Sarah Vap, Rosalynde Vas Dias, Miles Waggener, Scott Ward, Michael Waters, Ellen Waterston, Jonathan Weinert, Donovan Welch, Patricia Wellingham-Jones, Maggie Wells, Laurelyn Whitt, L. E. Wilber, C. K. Williams, Sam Witt, Cecilia Woloch, Doog T. Wood, Deborah Woodard, Chad R. Woody, Robert Wrigley, Gary Young, Karen Zealand, Su Zi, and Lisa Zimmerman.

For further information and ordering details about Cadence of Hooves: A Celebration of Horses, readers are urged to visit the Yarroway Mountain Press web page for this anthology.


[Photo Credit: Logan Williams]