An American Mosaic: Prose and Poetry by Everyday Folk

by Robert Wolf (Editor)

From Walt Whitman's catalog of America to Thomas Hart Benton's American epics painted on walls across the country to Studs Terkel's documentaries, much artistic and literary labor has stemmed from the urge to figure out what makes this country tick. Any attempt at so large a canvas as this
disparate country will be fragmented and incomplete, but like Benton's 1932 mural "American Today", American Mosaic is composed of pieces that taken together provide a vivid look at vanishing scenes of American life.
Here, Robert Wolf offers a collective autobiography of the American heartland written for the most part by everyday men and women without literary ambition. Focusing on the second half of the twentieth century, this collection of essays, short stories, poems, and memoirs--woven together with
Wolf's introductory notes--is the culmination of nine years of Free River Press writing workshops conducted by Wolf for the purpose of documenting contemporary American life.
The volume includes work from homeless men and women from Tennessee, small farmers in rural Iowa, residents of Midwestern small towns, the Mississippi Delta, and river communities on the Mississippi. These first-person, eyewitness accounts offer glimpses of daily the farmers' struggles
against large corporations; poetic meditations on life in the streets, on the road, and in prison; tall tales of river town saloons; and the social rituals of cooking, town hall and party phone lines across America's small towns. Among many narratives, American Mosaic gives us the ruminations of a
homeless woman over a martini in El Gilbert's poem "Drunk," descriptions of hearty, communal meals during the July harvest in Clara Leppert's piece "Meals for Threshers," a picture of the goings-on in a West Helena, Arkansas juke joint with Chris Crawford's essay "Lucky Lacey," and the reminiscences
of a former Mississippi River towboat captain in Jack Libby's "The Midnight Watch Change."
Together, these diverse stories comprise panels of a literary mural of America. American Mosaic is a compelling testament to regional and local American voices and folkways which are fast disappearing through the relentless push towards a global economy and culture.

352 pages, Hardcover

First published June 24, 1999

About the author

I spent about 50 years criss-crossing America, living in 10 states and and in humungous cities like New York and Chicago, as well as small towns and villages like Duran, New Mexico (when I was 19 and rented a shack for $10 a month). My goal was to know America fully and to that end I wanted to work every job in the country and have conversations with everyone. I've been a newspaper columnist, a teacher in an inner-city school, a college teacher, a ranch hand, a writing instructor, a dishwasher and busboy. I have used all these experiences in my novels, plays, nom-fiction, and poetry. At 82 I've had a rich life.

Reviews

[Emily]

Quite amazing book ^^ I had a good time reading of the homeless, the communes, the farmers, and small towns. I only wish the editor had made his HUGE masterpiece work spanning ALL the walks of life like he had planned in the foreword :(

[Iggy Ignoffo]

The author lets the salt of the earth tell their personal stories in their own voices. Some are prosaic, most are quietly moving. A real mixture of humor and some sadness. A good read.

[George]

This is probably closer to a 3.5 rating, but in absence of half stars it remains a 3.

The memoirs of the Iowa farmers profiled were particularly educational for me. The fact that the governments estimation for what was best for small farmers led to bankruptcy and economic collapse for many of them was backward policy at best.

It gives those Farm Aid concerts I've heard of a whole new context...

Read this book to the end. There is some really thoughtful writing in the afterword.

[Bryan]

The first section in this book is poetry and prose written by homeless folks. The images conjured by their words are unbelievable - raw, real, and unabashedly honest. This section alone makes it a great read.