Poetry
Old Spookses' Pass, Malcolm's Katie, and Other Poems
Isabella Valancy Crawford · 1884
Synopsis
The volume brings together two long narrative poems and shorter pieces. In the first, a cowboy tells, in Western speech, of the night when the herd he was driving across the Rockies stampeded towards a ravine. In the second, Katie, only daughter of a rich pioneer farmer, loves Max, who is clearing a distant lot of forest to build their home. Alfred, an attractive suitor who covets her father's fortune, attaches himself to her and then joins Max in the woods. Around them, the winds of the seasons fight like Amerindian warriors.
Context
The only collection published in her lifetime, printed at her own expense by James Bain and Son, in Toronto: she paid for the print run of a thousand copies, and about fifty were sold. London reviews wrote about it, the Spectator and the Saturday Review among others, praising the variety of the talent and deploring the emphasis; in Toronto, the Globe and The Week reviewed it. Her poems were collected in 1905, then reissued in 1972 with an introduction by the poet James Reaney.
Who it is for
Narrative verse that is easy to read, except for the first of the two, whose spelling is phonetic. The mythological imagery is dense and calls for patience.
Prizes and reception
Critics now count her among Canada's first important women poets, and her long narrative poems are the most studied part of her work.
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