The Portable Western Reader

by Unknown

• ISBN13: 9780140230260
• ISBN10: 0140230262
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-07-01
• Publisher: Penguin Books

Summary

The American West is as varied in its inhabitants as in its landforms. Yet what has come to stand for "Western" writing is the myth of the wagon train and the lone gunman. In the Portable Wester Reader, William Kittredge has assembled stories, poems, essays, and excerpts that transcend the Western myth and explore the vast range of Western experience. With selections from more than seventy authors, and an introduction and headnotes by William Kittredge. The Portable Western Reader redefines the Western literary landscape.

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS	vii	(8)
INTRODUCTION: "WEST OF YOUR TOWN: ANOTHER COUNTRY"	xv
William Kittredge
PART ONE: ANCIENT STORIES	1	(76)
Introduction	1	(1)
Washington Matthews
"House Made of the Dawn" (Navajo night chant)	2	(4)
A. L. Kroeber
"The Woman and the Horse," from Gros Ventre Myths and Tales	6	(1)
Catharine McCellan
"The Girl Who Married the Bear	7	(7)
Jarold Ramsey
"Coyote and Eagle Go to the Land of the Dead"	14	(3)
C. C. Uhlenbeck
"How the Ancient Peigans Lived"(Blackfeet tale)	17	(6)
James Welch
from Fools Crow	23	(16)
James Mooney
from The Ghost-Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890	39	(1)
Linda Hogan
from Mean Spirit	40	(7)
John Graves
"The Last Running"	47	(14)
Louise Erdrich
Fleur	61	(13)
Joy Harjo
"Deer Dancer"	74	(3)
PART TWO: TRANSCENDING THE WESTERN	77	(222)
Introduction	77	(1)
Walt Whiteman
"Song of the Redwood-Tree" from Leaves of Grass	78	(6)
e. e. cummings
"Buffalo Bill's"	84	(1)
D. H. Lawrence
from "Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales", in Studies in Classic American Literature	85	(10)
Meriwether Lewis
William Clark
from the Journals	95	(22)
A. B. Guthrie Jr.
from The Big Sky	117	(8)
Teddy Blue Abbott
from We Pointed Them North: Recollections of a Cowpuncher	125	(11)
O. E. Rolvaag
from Giants in the Earth	136	(10)
Elinore Ruperet Stewart
from Letters of a Woman Homesteader	146	(2)
Wallace Stegner
"Carrion Spring," from Wolf Willow	148	(15)
Mari Sandoz
from Old Jules	163	(17)
Dorothy M. Johnson
"The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"	180	(16)
Jack London
"A Raid on the Oyster Pirates"	196	(10)
John Steinbeck
"The Squatters' Camps," from The Harvest Gypsies	206	(5)
Robinson Jeffers
"Eagle Valor, Chicken Mind"	211	(1)
Ernest Hemingway
"The Clark's Fork Valley, Wyoming"	212	(3)
Theodore Roethke
"All Morning"	215	(2)
"Te Far Field"	217	(4)
Norman Maclean
from A River Runs Through It	221	(9)
Wright Morris
from Ceremony in Lone Tree	230	(12)
John Haines
"If the Owl Calls Again," from The Owl in the Mask of the Dreamer	242	(1)
from "Three Days," in The Stars, the Snow, the Fire	243	(5)
Ivan Doig
from This House of Sky	248	(11)
Larry McMurtry
"Take My Saddle from the Wall: A Valediction"	259	(25)
Mary Clearman Blew
from All But the Waltz	284	(15)
PART THREE: OUR OWN STORIES	299	(146)
Introduction	299	(1)
W. H. Auden
"The West from the Air," from The Dyer's Hand	300	(3)
Galway Kinnell
"The Bear"	303	(3)
William Stafford
"Traveling Throught the Dark"	306	(1)
"Help from History"	307	(1)
"Paso por Aqui"	308	(1)
"Late, Passing Prairie Farm"	308	(2)
David Wagoner
"A Guide to Dungeness Spit"	310	(2)
Ken Kesey
from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest	312	(17)
Thomas McGrath
"Legends, Heroes, Myth-Figures and Other American Liars"	329	(3)
"The Pleasures of the Great Salt Lake"	332	(1)
"Longing"	333	(1)
Keith Wilson
"The Poem Politic 10: A Note for Future Historians"	334	(2)
Edward Abbey
from Desert Solitaire	336	(6)
Gary Snyder
"Above Pate Valley"	342	(1)
"Painting the North San Juan School"	343	(1)
"Getting in the Wood"	344	(1)
"Dillingham, Alaska, the Willow Tree Bar"	345	(1)
Richard Hugo
"Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg"	346	(2)
"The Freaks at Spurgin Road Field"	348	(1)
"Silver Star"	348	(1)
"Driving Montana"	349	(1)
"Fort Benton"	350	(1)
"Duwamish"	351	(2)
"Salt Water Story"	353	(2)
Philip Levine
"Sierra Kid"	355	(5)
"Soloing"	360	(1)
Richard Shelton
"The Hole"	361	(2)
"The Stones"	363	(1)
Maxine Hong Kingston
"American Father," from China Men	364	(18)
Raymond Carver
"My Father's Life	382	(9)
Richard Ford
"Communist"	391	(15)
David Quammen
"Orphan Calves," from "Walking Out"	406	(7)
Thomas McGuane
"The Heart of the Game"	413	(12)
Rick DeMarinis
"Paraiso: An Elegy"	425	(11)
Greg Pape
"Some Names"	436	(1)
"Blessing at the Citadel"	437	(3)
Tess Gallagher
"Cougar Meat"	440	(2)
"The Borrowed Ones"	442	(3)
PART FOUR: BRILLIANT POSSIBILITIES	445
Introduction	445	(1)
Czeslaw Milosz
"To Robinson Jeffers"	446	(3)
N. Scott Momaday
from The Names: A Memoir	449	(11)
Robert Hass
"On the Coast near Sausalito"	460	(2)
"On Squaw Peak"	462	(3)
Gretel Ehrlich
"On Water," from The Solace of Open Spaces	465	(8)
Leslie MArmon Silko
"Storyteller"	473	(15)
Marilynne Robinson
from Housekeeping	488	(14)
David Long
"Lightning"	502	(15)
Pattiann Rogers
"A Passing"	517	(1)
"Why Lost Divinity Remains Lost"	518	(2)
Garrett Hongo
"Yellow Light"	520	(2)
"What For"	522	(2)
Robert Wrigley
"Ravens at Deer Creek"	524	(1)
"Majestic"	525	(3)
Albert Wrigley
"The Secret Lion," from The Iguana Killer	528	(5)
Jimmy Santiago Baca
from "Martin," in Martin and Meditations on the South Valley [Section V]	533	(4)
Ray Gonzalez
"Snakeskin (A Dream)"	537	(1)
"Talk with the Priest"	538	(1)
James Galvin
"Water Table"	539	(3)
"Coming into His Shop from a Bright Afternoon"	542	(1)
"from The Meadow	543	(3)
Terry Tempest Williams
"The Clan of One-Breasted Women," from Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place	546	(8)
Richard K. Nelson
"The Gifts of Deer," from The Island Within	554	(22)
Adrian C. Louis
"In the Ghetto on the Prairie There Is Unrequited Love"	576	(1)
"Sometimes a Warrior Comes Tired"	577	(1)
"America Loomed Before Us"	578	(1)
Sherman Alexie
"The Business of Fancydancing"	579	(1)
"My Heroes Have Never Been Cowboys"	580	(4)
Barry Lopez
"The Passing Wisdom of Birds"	584	(10)
Allen Ginsberg
"A Supermarket in California"	594