Bitter Creek Junction: Poetry of the American West

Bitter Creek Junction: Poetry of the American West

By Linda Hasselstrom

The West found in Linda Hasselstrom’s poems is neither the mythical Old West nor the New West of ranchettes and trophy homes. Hasselstrom’s aria is set to the rhythms of the authentic West, laced with lyrical realism, and distilled to the sharp crispness of a plains morning.

Here you’ll find the night heron whose “slender beak descends, a sudden hammer on a silver spine.” You’ll “give yourself sunsets…in shades of pink and gold” while “long tatters curl eastward like discarded ribbons.”

• • 0-931271-53-3 • trade paper • full-color jacket • 72 pp • $12.95 ORDER NOW

Also available on CD or cassette read by the author!

• • CD ($12)ORDER NOW
• •Cassette tape ($8) ORDER NOW

Bitter Creek Junction: Poetry of the American West

By Linda Hasselstrom

“These poems speak out of the western experience, old and new, with an unmistakable voice. Nobody writes better than Linda Hasselstrom about the grinding chores, economic instability, and deep satisfactions of contemporary ranching. …Hasselstrom goes beyond branding and mending fences.… Here the old west and the new cohabit uneasily."
•• Edith Rylander, Dancing Back the Cranes

“[The book’s] themes transcend the western landscape. Her writing is raw and unpretentious…the voice of a woman who has learned while living, and has something to say."
•• The Bloomsbury Review

“Pithy, forthright, uncompromising…[those words] fall short short.…you are never far from the High Plains when accompanying Linda Hasselstrom through her poetry."
•• Hard Row to Hoe

Linda Hasselstrom

Linda M. Hasselstrom writes, ranches, conducts writing retreats, and hosts a botanic garden on the South Dakota ranch homesteaded by her grandfather in 1899. She writes, "I am a perpetual student of American Western history, culture and ecology. I write to learn. My primary job is writing about the territory I love, including not only the land but its inhabitants, human and otherwise, and their stories." Hasselstrom holds an MA in American Literature.

She is the author of a host of books on the plains including essays, memoirs, poetry, and the text for a photography book. She is also the co-editor, with Gaydell Collier and Nancy Curtis, of three collections of work by women from the plains, Leaning into the Wind, Woven on the Wind, and Crazy Woman Creek, all published by Houghton Mifflin.

Bitter Creek Junction was the winner of the Western Heritage Award (Wrangler) for Poetry and was a WILLA award finalist from Women Writing the West.

Bitter Creek Junction: Poetry of the American West

 

Video of author reading poem "Where the Stories Come From":

Video of author reading poem "Make a Hand": 

Also available on CD or cassette read by the author!

• • CD ($12)ORDER NOW
• •Cassette tape ($8) ORDER NOW