Research Catalog

Title

A thousand miles of stars / Walt McDonald.

Author

McDonald, Walter.

Publication

Lubbock, Tex. : Texas Tech University Press, [2004], ©2004.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

x, 66 pages; 24 cm

Summary

"A West Texas starscape, stunning by any measure, is emblematic of Walt McDonald's plains. A lifelong celebration culminates in this, his best - and perhaps last - collection of new poems. At seventy, the poet affirms, we live by the mystery of grace even as we watch familiar stars blink out at dawn."--BOOK JACKET.

Subject

• Texas > Poetry

Contents

Barbed wire before Pearl Harbor -- Our mother who taught tumbling -- My brother's photos before Okinawa -- Uncle Howell and the magic of moonlight -- Oranges for my sister when she was nine -- Woodworker's Saturday nights -- Coat collars up like thugs -- Gehenna and the country's tires -- December after World War II -- Aunt Emma and the spoils of war -- Rattling past ninety -- Jukebox nights in Georgia -- Practice during the Cuban missile crisis -- One summer before Saigon -- Dawn outside Saigon -- Too far from town to play baseball -- Sausage in the mess hall -- Anniversary waltz -- War never stops even when all vets are dead -- No wonder my wife is tough -- Dogs romping until dawn -- Harvest -- Mobeetee, where faith and neighbors failed -- How Aunt Martha handled scandal -- How much time we're promised -- Fathers and sons -- October compost -- Uncles on Sunday battlegrounds -- Wishing for Easter all year long -- Hammering ice to slush -- Hoping to break the chain -- Grandmother's house at Kitty Hawk -- Dusk at Kill Devil Hills -- Bulldozing the outer banks -- All salty summer -- Parties in a heated hall -- A little night music -- Taking the keys from mother -- In shallows of the Brazos -- At the bald men's convention -- Turning sixty-five on hardscrabble -- Some boys are born to wander -- Opening the cabin in March -- Ranching at glacier -- In Arnold Schwend's saloon -- Sun turns the ice to oil -- A player that struts and frets onstage -- Leaving the middle years -- Crows at dawn in Montana -- In wild Montana mountains -- When the days dwindle down.

ISBN

0896725383 (alk. paper)

LCCN

2004009453

OCLC

• ocm55019150
• SCSB-5125382

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries