Overview

Old Rags and Iron is a collection of narrative poems about the life experiences of working-class people with whom the author, R. F. McEwen, is not only acquainted but whose lives he has shared. McEwen supplemented his income as a teacher while working as a professional logger and tree trimmer, and he writes with great love and respect for blue-collar families. Set primarily in the back-of-the-yard neighborhood of South Side Chicago, where McEwen grew up, as well as Pine Ridge, South Dakota, western Nebraska, Ireland, and elsewhere, the poems celebrate many voices and stories. Utilizing tree-trimming as a central metaphor, these poems of blank verse fictions reverberate like truth.

Full Product Details

Author:   R. F. McEwen ,  Ted Kooser
Publisher:   University of Nebraska Press
Imprint:   University of Nebraska Press
ISBN:  

9781496241894

ISBN 10:   1496241894
Pages:   144
Publication Date:   01 March 2025
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction by Ted Kooser ""Old Rags and Iron"" & Other Narratives Old Rags and Iron Cotton Bishop’s Good Sleep A Round on Jackson’s Trace A Strong Wind Clear and Keen Ash Hollow Bill Richard’s Boy Hammer Ring John Hanks’s Blue Hound Fragment from a Larger Poem Crossing Dad’s Way Dust to Dust High Hawk: Eugene Pierce, His Passing (1998–2017) In the Pines Incident at the Bus Stop Kadokah Lion’s Head: Cass County, Nebraska, 1953 Lost Tracks at Sorley’s Creek Moody Boatright’s “Dead Dad Ditty” Nick’s Night On the Wing Parrot Pal Second Shift at Tilden Steel Snow Man Spelling Wilson James: Blue Island, Illinois, 1967 The Honcho River and Its Run The Wind along the Crest Well-Found at Neilly’s Creek The Rising of Rock Fowler Creek George Corchran’s Later Blow Tree Trimmer’s Paradise To Jim D. Manning, Tree Man: Who Died in His Tree June 1983 Late October: Richardson and Early Storms Bill Ward’s Winter Break Absent Crew John Early Poems Their Last Lad’s Fishing Early Rising John Early Remembers: The Moment of His Wife’s Death Sonnet for the Lost and Found On Looking Back John Early Wonders, Waiting Dawn White River Poems Tracks Don’t Lie Panaderia The Lessoning Buried Deep at Fast Horse Creek Aunt Rose in Great Demand Lean Jack MacBride: A Fragment From Prairie Schooner, 1991–2005 Tuckered In, Tuckered Out Wings Snow Gazer Quare Garden at the Dry End of the State Gill Bronsen’s Dream Irish Poems Back to Old Mhaigh Eo The Far Side of Red Bay Small Favors For Agnes Maddy Conlin (1892–1953): On the Occasion of Her Funeral Her Way with Words, with Life: Aileen O’Lyne (1993–2018) Double Shift

Reviews

“R. F. McEwen’s collection presents a compelling chorus of voices in different tones and registers, and widely dispersed across time, place, and human experience. McEwen masterfully revives here the noble tradition of the extended poetic narrative, adding richly and intensively to that enduring poetic tradition that his poems at once amplify and enrich. Meticulously conducted and finely detailed in language, image, and emotional intensity, these are brawny poems that we shall not easily forget. They set root in the mind, reminding us, through the moving voices and histories of the characters we meet in them, of the terrible and terrifying adventure of human community, of the triumph and torment that, in all its extraordinary diversity, unites us all, branches upon a deep-rooted tree that reach ever toward the sky.”—Stephen Behrendt, George Holmes Distinguished Professor of English emeritus at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln “We enter the world of these narrative poems like Robert Frost’s rider of birches—a whiplash to the eye as you make your way into the tangled twigs, then a fantasy taking flight on bent branches up through the traumas of childhood through the arc of adulthood, from winds having their say, stops along the road outside Kadokah, the rising White River or Fast Horse Creek, up the tree trimmer’s hold, down the streets of vagrants and rolling bottles, from Chicago to reservation towns, past the complications of families mixed and otherwise, across the waters to the Emerald Island itself. These poems thrust us up and out of the page a while, then bring us back down firmly on Earth, good both going and coming, unsettling and exhilarating in the same sweep. No discussion of Great Plains literature is complete without at least one trip into the understory with R. F. McEwen as your guide.”—Matt Evertson, professor of English at Western Colorado University “R. F. McEwen’s Old Rags and Iron is a generous and joyful gathering of work written across a lifetime. In finely crafted narrative poems, McEwen gives eloquent and tender voice to the human and the nonhuman worlds that harbor his subjects. He reminds us that wherever there are people, there are animals and trees, all contending with or enjoying the seasons in Nebraska, Illinois, Iowa, and Ireland. Both mythic figures like Lonesome Frank in ‘Hammer Ring’ and an old aunt in ‘A Strong Wind Clear and Keen’—‘I see her still, my mother’s aunt, her feet like freezing soldiers doddering along’—come vibrantly alive in the distinctive, sparkling, and wonderful poems that compose this collection.”—Eamonn Wall, author of My Aunts at Twilight Poker

“R.F. McEwen’s collection presents a compelling chorus of voices in different tones and registers, and widely dispersed across time, place, and human experience. McEwen masterfully revives here the noble tradition of the extended poetic narrative, adding richly and intensively to that enduring poetic tradition that his poems at once amplify and enrich. Meticulously conducted and finely detailed in language, image, and emotional intensity, these are brawny poems that we shall not easily forget. They set root in the mind, reminding us, through the moving voices and histories of the characters we meet in them, of the terrible and terrifying adventure of human community, of the triumph and torment that, in all its extraordinary diversity, unites us all, branches upon a deep-rooted tree that reach ever toward the sky.”—Stephen Behrendt, George Holmes Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln “We enter the world of these narrative poems like Robert Frost’s rider of birches—a whiplash to the eye as you make your way into the tangled twigs, then a fantasy taking flight on bent branches up through the traumas of childhood through the arc of adulthood, from winds having their say, stops along the road outside Kadokah, the rising White River or Fast Horse Creek, up the tree trimmer’s hold, down the streets of vagrants and rolling bottles, from Chicago to reservation towns, past the complications of families mixed and otherwise, across the waters to the Emerald Island itself. These poems thrust us up and out of the page a while, then bring us back down firmly on Earth, good both going and coming, unsettling and exhilarating in the same sweep. No discussion of Great Plains literature is complete without at least one trip into the understory with R.F. McEwen as your guide.”—Matt Evertson, professor of literature at Chadron State College “R.F. McEwen’s Old Rags and Iron is a generous and joyful gathering of work written across a lifetime. In finely crafted narrative poems, McEwen gives eloquent and tender voice to the human and the nonhuman worlds that harbor his subjects. He reminds us that wherever there are people, there are animals and trees, all contending with or enjoying the seasons in Nebraska, Illinois, Iowa, and Ireland. Both mythic figures like Lonesome Frank in ‘Hammer Ring’ and an old aunt in ‘A Strong Wind Clear and Keen’—‘I see her still, my mother’s aunt, her feet like freezing soldiers doddering along’—come vibrantly alive in the distinctive, sparkling, and wonderful poems that comprise this collection.”—Eamonn Wall, author of My Aunts at Twilight Poker

Author Information

R. F. McEwen was born in Chicago, Illinois. Since 1962 he has been a professional logger and tree trimmer, and he has taught English in Chadron, Nebraska, since 1972. McEwen is the author of several books, most recently The Big Sandy, Bill’s Boys and Other Poems, and And There’s Been Talk . . .  

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