Author Description

Madelyne Camrud channels the storytelling spirit and tradition of valiant narratives, melding tones of landscapes, women, and men into a familial literary score that maps emotions on the expansive Dakota prairie. Labeled a book of songs, this poetry collection is a hymn to the adventurous European women who transplanted on the northern plains in the aftershocks of ocean and continent crossings and to their hyphenated-American daughters and daughters¿ daughters born in successive generations. In four movements, Camrud acquaints readers with her Norwegian matriarchal line and the defining moments of those women¿s lives and legacies. Readers encounter the joys and pains of aging parents abandoned, grieving widows sorrowing, lonely hired men and strong maids wanting, nosy neighbors prying, and desperate spouses wedding for survival.¿Camrud¿s poems give voice to the transplanted women who flourished, imagining their passionate highs and despondent lows, and the stories that sustained them.¿¿Melissa Gjellstad, Associate Professor, University of North Dakota ¿Songs of Horses and Lovers is both hymn and elegy¿a poetic memoir that sings and mourns a family saga in documentary-like fashion and in language that often reaches Biblical lamentation. Songs is a sustained meditation of¿and homage to¿matriarchal lineage, set against the thundering echoes of traditional Norwegian saga.¿¿Thom Tammaro, author of 23 Poems, 31 Mornings in December, and Holding on for Dear Life Songs ¿gives voice to silences that are all too common in the historical record: stories of forbidden love, premarital sex, incest, sexual assault, and abortion. These are important topics that often don¿t appear when families tell their stories.¿ ¿Lori Ann Lahlum, co-editor of Norwegian American Women: Migration, Communities, and Identities