Publisher Description

The Music of Her Rivers pays homage to the rivers that taught the poet--the Rio Grande and the Chicago and Illinois Rivers. Sharp-eyed and empathetic, Golden serves as a witness, documenting place, history, and people, especially those left voiceless due to violence or discrimination--from the refugee border crossers of the Rio Grande to the Irish immigrants and former slaves struggling to build lives in Chicago in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Each poem captures the enduring challenges of Native peoples, laborers, naturalists, and immigrants through its haunting and consuming verse. Throughout the collection the nuanced representation of the landscape allows the rivers to become witnesses and actors themselves.

Author Biography

Renny Golden is an activist and award-winning author. Her book Blood Desert: Witnesses, 1820-1880 (UNM Press) won the WILLA Literary Award for poetry in 2011, was Named a Southwest Notable Book of the Year in 2012, and was a finalist for the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award.

Table of Contents

Rio Grande Praise The Chama and the Benedictines Passengers Meinrad's Call Dream of the One-Footed They Named Me Wolf Dark River, Light Falling God's Map: A Sonnet Crown Like a Door Flung Open Gamblers Lament The Angel of Tenosique Migrations Last Blessing N

Review

Her rivers are urgent witnesses; her rivers sing truths, shimmer in the darkness. Here are songs pure as water to nourish and cleanse us in the season of lies." - Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street

Review Quote

"These are poems of lyric beauty and also of masterful storytelling. Golden is able to compress a novel's worth of living into a few crystal-clear lines."--Chloe Martinez, RHINO Poetry

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