Morning of the Red-Tailed Hawk (review)

Abstract

followed by an excellent oibliography. To be commended are those involved with the design, composition, and printing of this book. Not only is the text attractive, it reads easily as well with pages that are uncluttered and sections clearly defined. And the photographs ? The photographs are excellent. In addition to the illustrations for the text, the author has chosen seventy-four full page reproductions. It should be noted that at the time of her death, Ulmann had approximately 2000 glass plate negatives exposed but not yet developed. Several of these are reproduced in this book for the first time. I would agree with the University of New Mexico Press's assessment that Featherstone is successful in establishing a critical context in which to view Doris Ulmann's accomplishments , that is, "a photographer on the cusp of two distinct trends in photography—the romantic pictorialism of the teens and twenties , and the documentary of the thirties." However, in light of the number of textual errors given the essay's length, I must call to question the author's thoroughness. For example , according to the author, Doris Ulmann spent nearly the entire summer of 1933 shooting at the "Joseph G. Campbell" Folk School near Brasstown, North Carolina. A simple check of sources will reveal the actual name of the school as being the "John C. Campbell" Folk School. While to some this may appear to be a simple oversight on the part of the author or editor, this error along with misspellings and the mislabeling of one of the large prints casts a deep shadow across what is an otherwise bright essay. —William C. Richardson Sellers, Bettie. Morning of the Red-Tailed Hawk. University Center: Green River Press, 1981. Bettie Sellers' newest book of poetry captures a largeness of human experience akin to the innate human spirit of Steinbeck's Ma Joad. She writes in the American tradition of the craftsmanship, without the sly crafty stance, of Robert Frost. Her Georgia hills, birds, animals, insects, people are caught in immediate portrait and incident, woven into a subdued tapestry of allusion to the Bible, mythology, literature, human cycle of birth, love, loss and death. I remember meeting Bettie Sellers in Vermont . I still can see her there, wearing a small, round, tight knit hat, like small boys wear, pulled over her short hair, as protection from the bloody bite of the black flies of August. We shared a class, and poetry, in the Bread Loaf School of English that summer, enjoying idyllic greenery and intellectual camaraderie with faculty and students there. Her discipline, drive, and continued writing have since seen the publication of Westwardfrom Bald Mountain (1974), Appalachian Carols i«m /i ? \ \ / A I y V. J e (C ? e (C ? H ; ^N f, W: /S I Nia 'Vl Vv (