The Zuni Mountain Poets

The Zuni Mountains have over 360,000 acres of pristine wilderness. The volcanic area of the El Malpais National Monument is riddled with great, black lava flows, caves, and lava tubes. The El Morro National Monument has writings from ancient peoples flowing backward into time, early Spanish explorers, and later American explorers near a precious pool of deep water hidden beneath towering cliffs. Throughout Plateaus, mesas. cliffs, canyons, and small mountain peaks is the pygmy forest of pion and juniper trees interspersed with pines and towering Ponderosa pines with their red bark and straight trunks. The continental divide rises and falls as it winds its way north to the great Rocky Mountains. A polygot of peoples, Zuni, Pueblo, Navajo, Spanish, and the various ethnicities of Anglos make the Zuni Mountains home. Not all of the poems in this anthology are about the Zuni Mountains. The poets come from different places and different cultures, but the Zuni Mountains are in all the poems in this volume. Some of the poems capture the beauty of New Mexico sunlight that enlightens the human spirit in a way that sunlight in other places does not. Some are caught up by the mourning, laughter, sadness, comedy, tragedy, and endless stories that arise out of individuals living individual lives. Zuni Mountain country is not always an easy country. The trails through ancient volcanic flows frozen into black stone can challenge the most experienced hiker. You can be walking along a ridge and suddenly become aware that a mountain lion is watching you from a sandstone outcropping above your head. But it is a beautiful, wild place where horses can still find grass in green summer meadows and elk and antelope grace Mother Earth with the fluidity of movement and magnificence of the elks rack of horns. The poetry in this volume arises from the Zuni Mountains, and, as such, is as dynamic, interesting, and beautiful as the country from which it comes.

The Zuni Mountains have over 360,000 acres of pristine wilderness. The volcanic area of the El Malpais National Monument is riddled with great, black lava flows, caves, and lava tubes. The El Morro National Monument has writings from ancient peoples flowing backward into time, early Spanish explorers, and later American explorers near a precious pool of deep water hidden beneath towering cliffs. Throughout Plateaus, mesas. cliffs, canyons, and small mountain peaks is the pygmy forest of piñon and juniper trees interspersed with pines and towering Ponderosa pines with their red bark and straight trunks. The continental divide rises and falls as it winds its way north to the great Rocky Mountains. A polygot of peoples, Zuni, Pueblo, Navajo, Spanish, and the various ethnicities of Anglos make the Zuni Mountains home. Not all of the poems in this anthology are about the Zuni Mountains. The poets come from different places and different cultures, but the Zuni Mountains are in all the poems in this volume. Some of the poems capture the beauty of New Mexico sunlight that enlightens the human spirit in a way that sunlight in other places does not. Some are caught up by the mourning, laughter, sadness, comedy, tragedy, and endless stories that arise out of individuals living individual lives. Zuni Mountain country is not always an easy country. The trails through ancient volcanic flows frozen into black stone can challenge the most experienced hiker. You can be walking along a ridge and suddenly become aware that a mountain lion is watching you from a sandstone outcropping above your head. But it is a beautiful, wild place where horses can still find grass in green summer meadows and elk and antelope grace Mother Earth with the fluidity of movement and magnificence of the elk's rack of horns. The poetry in this volume arises from the Zuni Mountains, and, as such, is as dynamic, interesting, and beautiful as the country from which it comes.

Ask the Mad Poet: Observations from My Homeland in a Time of Convoluted Realities begins with the title poem, an invitation to “Ask the Mad Poet” (what better commentator on a mad world?), and ends with “I Ask a Few Questions,” a long, surreal overview of the poet’s generation based on a dream. In between, the fifty-four other poems, written from 2007 through 2014, include history, social commentary, celebrations, and, in “Mater Dei, Mater Gaia,” advocacy for Mother Earth. These are the poems of an aging man, lived beyond his three score ten, much of it working with the dispossessed, who feels a call to witness truth to power on behalf of the earth, the least among us, and the way things really are: a cry for balance in a world where the kings are in the counting house, the peasants fight for crumbs, and Mother Gaia burns.

The Glowing Pink contains selected poems from Standing Feather. Standing Feather is an LGBQT poet who lives near Ramah, New Mexico. Owner and operator of Galleria Carnaval near Ramah, NM, he is heavily involved in championing the artists and writers of that area. In addition to his work in the gallery, he is instrumental in operating the famous Ancient Way Cafe and championing the Wave Riders of the Ancient Way, which is designed "to create fun, safe, sacred, and heart-filled environments in which people can access their deep inner wisdom and self healing abilities." A large LGBQT community has formed around the activities of Redwulf DancingBare in this area of New Mexico. Feather is also involved in the Zuni Mountain Poets, participating in their publication of The Zuni Mountain Poets: An Anthology, and the El Morro Arts Council. As an artist his oil paintings have been displayed in galleries both in New Mexico and Arizona.

The poems in I Sleep Between the Moons of New Mexico are as condensed and glittering as the facets of a diamond. Words are used with a beautiful, powerful economy that expresses healing, anti-war, nature, the human experience, and other large themes. This is imagistic poetry that combines the complex metaphorical emotion and meaning of Emily Dickenson with the intense visual language of an H.D. or Amy Lowell. Davis's skill as a pastel artist has been metamorphised into words that explore an interior New Mexico landscape as spare, extravagant, and unique as a Steller's Jay flashing blue wings against the backdrop of soaring red cliffs.

""This second edition features three new Zuni stories, updated transcriptions of stories from the original edition, a bibliography, and a new preface and introduction.

White Ermine Across Her Shoulders has all the elements expected by readers of Ethel Mortenson Daviss poetry. The lines are highly imagistic and intense. Descriptions of the earths beauty are intermingled with comments, sometimes caustic, about the human experience. Often a music rises that is both emotional and filled with language and insights that remain in the memory long after the book has been put down. This, Daviss second volume, speaks eloquently about Kevin Michael Davis, her son who died of cancer in 2010 in Poughkeepsie, NY, and touches on other family relationships, making some of the poems more personal than those she has published before. These poems are balanced with an understanding of the universe and all of its creatures that encompasses both delight and wisdom. What makes this collection appealing is an intellectual depth that resonates, in the way of Emily Dickenson, with the imagistic and emotional core that has always been a hallmark of Daviss poetry.