Teacher and naturalist, Patrick Stevens brings us his ruminations on a life lived in a small commuity in the northwoods. He opens the town to our view with its emblems of character and its posture. The poet styles the upbringing and growth of the individual and reviews that which lies in the distance.
Like a backwoods guide, Stevens brings us through his and our own forests, casting a tender and incisive eye over a private but burgeoning life leaving nary a print in the snow other than the frost of our own enchanted breaths.
Panning Gold is in his own words:
The poems in this collection are centered on nature, learning, recollection and remembrance. Each carries some small piece of a path through life that I carried with me to this 74th year. Many of them reflect the substance of my youth and my experiences learning about the natural world and an America now past.Most of what is written about the 1950's and 60's concerns the turmoil of those times as our generation came of age: the bebop, hipsters, motorcycle hoods, flower power, riots in the streets, racism and war. We saw Brando and James Dean rise to fame, rock and roll heat the air waves, and the new electronic revolution of television begin to eat at our edges. We were the first teenage generation breaking with tradition and common cultural values.My generation grew up through the cold war, nuclear testing and threats, political assassination, race riots, the Korean and Viet Nam wars; all historic bullet points for texts describing mid-century America. We were the sons and daughters of the "greatest" generation, a generation of Americans who had struggled through the Great Depression, only to be thrown into the Second World War. They were tough people, winners, our parents, and they lead us into a new world of American dominance: politically, militarily, culturally.The beginnings of this book arose when I returned to live in my hometown after a 30 year absence. I noted significant changes in the community and the people, their prosperity and the texture of their lives. My hometown had become like every other town with a strip mall, Walmart, and franchised fast-food joints on either end of a dying main street. I began writing and recalling what had been at the beginning of my life. The great tree lined streets and magnificence of that era. Many of the poems reflect the pride we all felt with town celebrations, parades, the Fourth of July. Every small town had a high school marching band w