albanian gypsy

It took me quite a while to track down this book after first hearing about it years ago. An Albanian Gypsy Along Smooth Trails: Rose Wilder Lane is a collection of historically-based poems written by Jayne Vondrak.

During a 2000 Iowa Writing Project workshop on writing from historical documents, Vondrak studied Rose Wilder Lane's letters and journals at Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, concentrating mainly on those pertaining to Rose's years in Albania. Each of the fifty poems in the book was inspired by a single letter or diary entry found in the Hoover collection, and many are accompanied by photographs from the collection.

After reading Vondrak's book from cover to cover, I found myself going through my own files to locate the letters and journal entries Vondrak cites (thank you thank you thank you for including that information). This, of course, led me back to the poems. What a great way to spend an evening!
- posted by pioneergirl at 9:26 PM