Love from the Yellowstone Trail

The poems in Love from the Yellowstone Trail stem from my childhood. I spent my first eighteen years within sight of the Missouri River seen from our front porch steps in South Dakota. Thus rose six poems about the river. The Yellowstone Trail is an old name for stretches of the current Highway 12. Thus rose the book’s title and a way in and out of the book’s sections, just as the Trail was a way in and out of my hometown. On the Missouri’s west side lies the Standing Rock Reservation. You drive across the “Singing Bridge” and when your wheels hit land again you’re on the rez and in Mountain Standard time. That was always fun for me as a child: gaining or losing an hour within a couple of minutes. Thus rose nine poems about the Hunkpapa and other Lakota/ Dakota who live on Standing Rock and in my hometown. The book’s last section is about houses, anyone’s houses

Sharon Chmielarz has had seven books of poetry published including Calling, a finalist for the Indie Book Awards, 2011, and The Other Mozart. She's had poems published in magazines like Notre Dame Review, The Iowa Review, Salmagundi, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, The Hudson Review. Her latest award is Water Stone Review's 2012 Jane Kenyon Prize. Her new book is Love from the Yellowstone Trail June, (2013).