A Ranch Bordering the Salty River - Softcover

Page, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1635340357 ISBN 13: 9781635340358

Publisher: Finishing Line Press, 2016

Synopsis

The book is the story (in verse and poetic prose) of Jonathan, a rancher who learns how to run a ranch in an environmentally conscious manner. He also learns how treat the animals humanely, and the employees justly. He ensures that a generous portion of land is kept feral as a wildlife refuge and a haven for local flora. As the years pass, he is daily battling cattle rustlers, horse thieves, contact hustlers, and to keep his family's ranch eco-friendly. The drama unfolds until . . . 

About this title

Review:

Half Frost, half Hemingway, Stephen Page tells a gripping tale in verse of a rancher disenchanted with the details of administering land, its livestock, and its unreliable laborers, only to be called by the mythic lure of the nearby Wood and the amorphous deity that emerges to encounter him. The writing here is clean and lovely and permanent, which is rare in storytelling and rarer still in poetry. -Rustin Larson, author of The Philosopher Savant For Jonathan and Teresa, who live on A Ranch Bordering the Salty River, life is rich with pleasures and responsibilities. Set in the vast landscape of Argentina, where "summer is a bread oven that delivers too early" and "the gauchos once stopped to drink mate in front of the fire," Stephen Page's poems describe a life where the border between place and state of being are often crossed at a heavy price. The air is scented with eucalyptus, but there are vultures "heavy along the fenceline." In this place where "they do not honor absentmindedness," a man has little latitude in life's juggle of work, love, and spiritual journey. Page manages this precariousness beautifully in these poems. -Leslie McGrath, author of Opulent Hunger, Opulent Rage "Enter the myth" of Stephen Page's Argentine estancia of moonrings and mate in this love letter to a woman and her land from a former soldier who has "holstered (his) gun and sheathed / (his) knife and got down to the business / of grass." A Ranch Bordering the Salty River is a beautiful meditation on counting and "uncounting," of "eucalypti and sycamores," cattle and cattle thieves, yard hands, a growing family, trials, blessings, legends, and of overseeing a wooded eco-ranch. -Chip Livingston, author of Naming Ceremony and Crow-Blue, Crow-Black Stephen Page opens the gates to Jonathan's ranch where "the sky is so large" and we walk with Jonathan "into the myth of the Wood, the legend of its shade, to lick the dew off leaves." We ride horseback through the Belt of Venus. We greet Jonathan's dog, who arrives "as a moon phase, mostly black, a crescent tie of white...the sun reflected off (his) chest (sic) like a journeying god riding a chariot." We meet Teresa, Jonathan's wife, who "no longer wanders the Wood, but cradles her child in the bleach of her kitchen." We encounter "mountainous dragons with fire-wet tongues and hot breath and teeth like jagged sun-bleached rocks." We carry belt knives, hand guns, and stand outside Malingerer's home with hammers in our hand. Yes, Page invites us onto A Ranch Bordering the Salty River with all its beauty and violence. It is a visit we will long remember. -g emil reutter, author of Blue Collar Poet

About the Author:

Stephen Page is part Shawnee and part Apache. His other books of poetry include The Timbre of Sand (1999) and Still Dandelions (2004). He graduated from Palomar College, Columbia University (with honors), and Bennington College. He recieved a Jess Cloud Memorial Prize for Poetry, a Writer-in-Residence with stipend from the Montana Artists Refuge, a full Writer Fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center, an Imagination Grant from Cleveland State University, and an Arvon Foundation Ltd. Grant. His book reviews are published regularly in the Buenos Aires Herald and on Fox Chase Review. He also writes short stories, novels, screen plays. He has taught literature, ESL, and film studies. He loves family, spontaneous road trips, and throwing his cellphone into a large body of water.

About this edition

• Publisher: Finishing Line Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1635340357
• ISBN 13: 9781635340358
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 48