The Red Drum: Poetry of the American West

The Red Drum: Poetry of the American West

By Jane Candia Coleman

Winner, Western Heritage Award, National Cowboy Museum

Jane Candia Coleman's first book of poetry, No Roof But Sky, was received with enthusiasm by critics and readers alike.

The Red Drum, winner of a 1994 Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, expands on that rich tradition. Here are poems that are eloquent, earthy, and exact in their insight into the unsentimental reality of the American West.

• • 0-931271-28-2 • trade paper • full-color jacket • 72 pp • $9.95 ORDER NOW

The Red Drum: Poetry of the American West

By Jane Candia Coleman

"She doesn't waste words. She's not obtuse and she's not obscure. She writes spare and lean and sinewy, and damn, she does it well."

Jane Candia Coleman

Jane Candia Coleman’s first book, a volume of poetry, No Roof But Sky (High Plains Press), was received with enthusiasm by critics and readers alike. The Red Drum, a second poetry volume, followed a few years later. High Plains Press also published her book of poetry about the life of Father Kino, The White Dove, in 2007.

Coleman writes in plain language, combining words and phrases to form a startlingly lyrical symphony of the West. As Paul L. Allen wrote in the Tucson Citizen, “It’s obvious she’s one of them as don’t hold much truck with frills or doo-dads. She doesn’t waste words. She’s not obtuse and she’s not obscure. She writes spare and lean and sinewy, and damn, she does it well.”

Coleman has written 21 books in the genres of fiction, memoir, poetry, and short stories. Jane Candia Coleman is the recipient of three Western Heritage Awards from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame—two for poetry, No Roof But Sky and The Red Drum, and another for her first collection of short fiction, Stories From Mesa Country.

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but hungering even as a child for the West, she made her first trip there in 1965 and moved to a ranch in Cochise County, Arizona, in 1986. She now lives in Tucson.

She was the co-founder and Director of the Women’s Creative Writing Center at Carlow College in Pittsburgh, and she currently teaches in the low-residency MFA program there.

“I first discovered Jane Candia Coleman in Louis L’Amour Western Magazine,” said Johnny D. Boggs, author of Whiskey Kills and other Killstraight stories, “first with her short story ‘Lou,’ which I thought was brilliant, then a few years later with another short story, ‘Are You Coming Back, Phin Montana?,’ which also blew me away. She’s an absolutely amazing writer — whether she’s writing short fiction or historical novels — with a strong sense of place, and wonderful characters. Her prose often reads like pure poetry. No surprise there. She’s also an incredible poet.”