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Category: Mainstream EPIC eBook Award Winner
Description: Brush Country is a collection of poems that vary greatly in style, tone, length, and content. Their unity is in the setting. Each poem is about some person, place or event that has transpired or been inspired by the Brush Country of Central Texas. Each poem has its own ambiance and its own rhythm. Whether rugged and rough hewn as the tangled underbrush that grows in stubborn profusion beneath the stately oaks and scrubby mesquites or as finely wrought as the fragile flowers that bloom in shady glades and hidden places, these poems reflect the unique environment, the ambiguous nature and the paradoxical people who inhabit this distinctive and unusual little corner of the world. AWARD: Preditors and Editors Readers'Poll Best Poet 2002
eBook Publisher: Whiskey Creek Press, 2003 WHISKEY CREEK PRESS
eBookwise Release Date: February 2005

1 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [51 KB]
Words: 8251
Reading time: 23-33 min.

"Featured in this work are winning selections from the Greater Dallas Writers Association Manuscript Contest--Poetry Category, and it is not difficult to explain Houston's triumph. Simple words strung together form social commentary ("Amanda": Her world was sparse and lacking/Made bleak by poverty's woe), feelings of loss ("Alice": What in the universe can atone/For being left to die alone?), and a colorful sense of place ("Aubade": The gorgeous drapery of dawn slowly unfolds.). Each poem is a chapter in the life of Brush Country, each character vivid in the reader's mind. A reader's first impression may paint Brush Country as a desolate place, yet Houston evokes a sense of quiet hope in her poems ("Low Water Crossing": Along little hollows in awkward places/Flowers fill the empty spaces.) as each subject is treated with sensitivity, from the man in the ten gallon hat to the speaker in "Maude," who never turned seventeen. Brush Country is a fine effort, the result of a most unusual muse."--Reviewed by Margie Cross, Rating: [5 of 5 Stars]

Ribbons of light in the east unrolled

Forcing night to loosen its silent hold

On the dry Brush Country, calm and serene.

Then the quiet of the tranquil scene

Was broken as from the hard, cracked ground

There rose a mournful, whimpering sound;

A rabbit caught in the underbrush

Moaned into the tranquil hush.

Such a plaintive cry, it twisted and rose

Across the landscape's quiet repose;

Calling to the arid scene

A coyote-predator, lank and lean.

He stopped, and turned his mangy head,

Sniffed the air, then with deadly tread

Walked stiff-legged to the very spot

In the underbrush where the rabbit was caught.