Welch, James

New York. 1976. Harper & Row. 1st Harper & Row Edition. Very Good in Slightly Worn Dustjacket. 0064519910. 71 pages. hardcover. The painting on the front of the jacket is by Neil Parson, a Blackfeet artist from Montana. Jacket design by Christine Aulicino. keywords: Poetry Native American America Literature. FROM THE PUBLISHER - James Welch's father once leased forty acres in Montana belonging to the Earthboy family. RIDING THE EARTHBOY 40, the first collected volume of Welch's verse, draws many of its themes from life among the ranches, small towns and Indian reservations around the Earthboy place. Welch's poetry has that deceptive quality of art carved down to its bare essentials. His style is at once both direct and subtle: direct in the stark clarity of its images; subtle in its skillful use of natural vignettes from the Montana landscape to convey insights into the most complex aspects of human behavior. Welch's verse is firmly rooted in his native soil, but branches out broadly into the realm of universal experience. This is an expanded version of an earlier edition printed but not released commercially by World Publishing Company in 1971, shortly before it discontinued its trade publishing operations. This revised edition contains seven entirely new poems. RIDING THE EARTHBOY 40 is the sixth book in Harper & Row's Native American Publishing Program. All profits from this program are set aside in a special fund and used to support projects designed to aid the Native American people. inventory #1118 ISBN: 0064519910.