Desert Poems by Norman McKnight - SOLD

Please note: The bound edition of Desert Poems is sold out. The book is available in unbound sheets here.

This selection is from a book originally published by Metropolitan Press, 1930. The author actually wrote these poems beginning ca. 1912, when her husband was the physician for the railroad survey of the Oregon & Eastern Railway. The poet wrote of the hardships and life of the 1912 homestead movement into the Great Basin Country of Malheur, Harney and Lake Counties in Oregon. These sonnets are particularly poignant for there reference to the point of view of the women pioneer homesteaders. Her understanding of the human environment as well as the natural environment are exceptional, and they are very reminiscent of another writer of the West, Mary Austin in her Land of Little Rain (1902). The printing types used for the poems is 22 point Arrighi from M&H Type; the preface is set in 16 point Centaur and the title is set in 42 point Augustea Filletata from the Nebiolo Foundry in Milan. The drawings by the printer are pen and ink and hand colored using oil based pencils.