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Texas Reads: Poet laureate featured in new collection

Some books you read and enjoy, then move on to the next one. Others you might like to savor for a while. And then there are a few that you cherish and go back to time and again. Walt McDonald: Selected Poems (TCU Press, $18.95 hardcover) is one that I will cherish. The tenth book in the TCU Texas Poet Laureate Series honors the 2001 Texas Poet Laureate, 2002 A.C. Greene Award winner, former Air Force pilot and longtime Texas Tech professor, now retired.

Introducing the collection, guest editor and 2010 Texas poet laureate karla k. morton notes that McDonald has had more than 2,300 poems published in journals and 20 poetry collections.

“McDonald’s poems,” she writes, “seem to rise up from the soil and all the earthly waters, ripe with wisdom, connecting one generation to the next: the sweet meat of a fictional history handed down to the rest of the world with the splendor of the grand storytellers of the past.”

The eighty poems selected for this slim volume speak to the range of McDonald’s subjects and the rhythm of his lyrics. He writes about war and family and love, about sandstorms and ranching and fishing, about ordinary folks, old age and death.

I have to admit that most collections of poetry leave me saying “huh?” more often than “wow!” Not this one. One minute I’m laughing out loud reading “Baptizing the Dog at Nine” and “Aunt Linda and the Pink Bikini.” Then I’m savoring his sweet tributes to his wife, Carol, “Nights on the Porch Swing” and “Rock Softly in My Arms.” And then I’m wiping away tears reading “Bargaining with God,” a poem inspired by his granddaughter, who died in 2004.

An excerpt from that one: “I beg Take me / instead of my darlings. Take the ranch / and bank account, the mountain cabin, / but save our granddaughter now. / Let me be Job in rags, Jeremiah / in tears, but heal this little child now.”

Limited edition: Four-O Publishing has teamed up with the Tom Lea Institute to produce a limited edition fine printing of “The Notebook of Nancy Lea 1932–1936.” Nancy Lea, an aspiring young writer and artist, died in 1936 at age twenty-nine. Her grieving husband — artist Tom Lea — and noted book designer Carl Hertzog published her notebook and distributed the tweny-five or so copies to friends as a lasting memorial to her.

The new limited edition includes the notebook as first published plus a foreword by Houston businessman and collector J. P. Bryan; an introduction by Jamie Christy, director of the Bryan Museum in Galveston; an afterword by Adair Margo, founder and president of the Tom Lea Institute in El Paso; and a 24-page color plate section of artwork, photographs and a reproduction of the first page from her hand-written notebook. The 250 numbered copies are $100 apiece and may be purchased by contacting Randy Armstrong at rarmstrg@hsutx.edu or 325-670-1436.

Glenn Dromgoole’s latest book is West Texas StoriesContact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.

>> Check out his previous Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Literary Life

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2017 Dallas Book Festival set for April 29

Partnership with Festival of Ideas to create unprecedented community event

National Book Award Winner Andrew Solomon and acclaimed authors Greg Iles, Paulette Jiles, Eric Litwin and Kristen Radke headline the 2017 Dallas Book Festival, a day-long celebration of literature, arts and culture on Sat., April 29.

For the first time, the annual Book Festival is being held in conjunction with the Dallas Festival of Ideas, a series of forums, seminars and discussions about the city’s future, for a unique, unprecedented event in downtown Dallas.

The Book Festival will take place on all eight floors of the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library, 1515 Young St. The Festival of Ideas will be centered across the street at Dallas City Hall. The two festivals will combine for the closing session, featuring a conversation with novelist Yaa Gyasi, with complementary programming throughout the day. All events are free and open to the public.

The full schedule will be available soon at www.dallasbookfestival.org. Details of the Festival of Ideas can be found at http://thedallasfestival.com.

The Book Festival, which began in 2006, drew more than 4,000 people last year. It features dozens of authors in individual presentations, interviews about their work or taking part in panels. Among the notable writers participating in the 2017 event are:

• Andrew Solomon, who won the National Book Award for The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, and is a noted authority on mental health.

• Kristen Radtke, a writer and illustrator whose appearance coincides with the release of her graphic memoir, Imagine Wanting Only This.

• Paulette Jiles, a novelist and poet whose most recent book, News of the World, was a National Book Award finalist.

• Eric Litwin, a musician and best-selling author of children’s books who inaugurated the popular Pete the Cat series.

• Greg Iles, whose 15 novels include the best-selling Natchez Burning and The Bone Tree and the forthcoming Mississippi Blood, to be released March 21. Iles will be featured in conversation with Stanley Nelson, editor of the Concordia (La.) Sentinel, whose investigations of the Ku Klux Klan and unsolved racially motivated murders in the region inspired many of Iles’s books.   >>READ MORE