Home Among the Swinging Stars is a brilliant collection of poems by Jaime de Angulo (1887 – 1950). His reflections of nature in the American West often feel like lyrics of Native American chants, painting images of coyotes, wild stallions, canyons and cactus. In contrast, other poems speak of the difficulties faced by Native and Latino Americans.
Having fallen in love with the desert myself, I was anxious to read these poems to see if I could recapture the feeling of being under that expansive sky, miles from anywhere. Home Among the Swinging Stars not only delivered those wished-for images, but poetry of the Big Sur and California Redwoods as well. Jaime de Angulo’s poetry feeds the imagination whether you’ve been Out West or not, also giving you a sense of the people who have lived there.
Jaime de Angulo, of Spanish descent, was born in Paris and moved to America when he was 14 years old. He lived in California, Colorado, South America, and several other locations in the U.S. and abroad, leading a rather complicated and continually evolving life, which greatly influenced his work. (If anyone is looking for a subject for writing a biography, this is one I’d love to read!) De Angulo’s writings have inspired many writers, including Jack Kerouac.
If you’d like to have your own copy of Home Among the Swinging Stars, you can enter to win one here. Subscribing to this blog automatically enters you into this and all future book giveaways. Or you may leave a comment on this post telling me what intrigues you about the book. Link to this post on your blog, and you’ll get another entry as well. I’ll choose a winner at random on March 29, 2008, at 12noon EST.
Special Note: I have TWO giveaways running right now! Normally I do one at a time, but since I misread the calendar when posting, you’ve still got time to enter to win The Edge of Europe by Pentti Saarikoski.
Home Among the Swinging Stars is published by La Alameda Press.
i want to read this book