Lost Copper Author:Wendy Rose From the preface by N. Scott Momaday: — "The good, strong things which constitute this book are numerous and diverse. Wendy Rose reaches into many corners of experience, and her perceptions are acute and trustworthy. Indeed, diversity may be the key word here, for Lost Copper is not a collection that one can characterize easily. Easy labels will ... more »not do. Here, for example, is certainly a literature of protest, but to say that is to mislead, for protest is not the essential vitality in this instance. Here is a celebration of the earth, to be sure, but neither is this the central fact. Time is involved here -- this work involves time; time involves this work -- not as a subject particularly, but as a dimension in which myriad subjects exist in crucial relation to each other. But even time is not the heart of this matter. I have come to believe that the syllables and words and verbal patterns of Lost Copper refer immediately to spirit. And the spirit of this book is nearly ineffable. It is an abstraction that adheres in the concrete world, like the hawk's shadow that glides upon the canyon wall. It is elusive. One cannot be sure what it is, and one cannot doubt that it is. It is supremely native.
"... But the native voice is preeminent in this case. In order to appreciate the range and power of the singer's voice, one must appreciate the nature of the song. Lost Copper is not made up of poems, I think, but of songs."« less