The Meadow

Mmmm, wow. The same wonderful friend who gave me “Autobiography of Red” tipped me off to poet James Galvin's novel-length effort. Although effort is probably the wrong word, as it implies to me that perhaps the effort wasn't successful, where instead, “The Meadow” is partially fictional, fully poetic, and totally wonderful. I read it with Edward Abbey in mind–Galvin chronicles the lives of several generations of farmers on a singular meadow on the Wyoming-Colorado border, and he also earns himself a spot (in my mind, at least), in the handful of writers who really capture this part of the country I now find myself living in. Galvin's pace is slow, and a hasty reader could be fooled into thinking nothing's going on. Instead, I think the real beauty of the book is how reverently Galvin captures the spirit of his friends and neighbors–their strength and willingness to make the best of the everydayness of life.