The Place the Spiders Waved. By Lucy Griffith
In this moving memoir-in-verse, Lucy Griffith takes us on a journey through a memorable childhood on the Esperanza Ranch in the South Texas brush country. You will meet the jefe and the vaqueros, the horses and vipers. Those lessons on the ranch that shaped and challenged her offer an opportunity to the reader to “ride along” and discover why the thorn scrub is a world to remember and celebrate.
In this moving memoir-in-verse, Lucy Griffith takes us on a journey through a memorable childhood on the Esperanza Ranch in the South Texas brush country. You will meet the jefe and the vaqueros, the horses and vipers. Those lessons on the ranch that shaped and challenged her offer an opportunity to the reader to “ride along” and discover why the thorn scrub is a world to remember and celebrate.
In this moving memoir-in-verse, Lucy Griffith takes us on a journey through a memorable childhood on the Esperanza Ranch in the South Texas brush country. You will meet the jefe and the vaqueros, the horses and vipers. Those lessons on the ranch that shaped and challenged her offer an opportunity to the reader to “ride along” and discover why the thorn scrub is a world to remember and celebrate.
“The Place the Spiders Waved finds Griffith at her cogitative best, using achingly beautiful language to delve into the people and places that raised her. Centered around a childhood on the Esperanza Ranch, Griffith’s triumphant collection reminds us that we are echoes of our own experiences-- webs of passions and perspectives, of lessons learned and innocence lost. With pastoral reverence Griffith offers liturgy for the land. How, like a mother, it can be gentle or rough in its teaching. Or how truth and thorn scrub can be equally difficult to navigate. Craftwise, Griffith is at her finest. She is Chopin tinkering with keys. Blank verse and triptychs, odes and elegies, anthropomorphic here and connecting narratives there― Griffith plays the right note on every page. This is a collection I will return to time and again with grateful longing for a place I’ve never been.” ~James Wade, award-winning author of Beasts of the Earth, and All Things Left Wild
“The Place the Spiders Waved is an exquisitely observed ode to the wonders, dangers, and history of the brush country. A generous, moving memoir-in-verse that startles and illuminates and above all demonstrates a deep reverence for this complicated land. A book I’ll treasure and press into the hands of anyone who asks why I love South Texas”~ Katie Gutierrez, best-selling author of More than You’ll Ever Know
“What a thrill to come across a talent like Lucy Griffith, who not only speaks the truth of South Texas/brush country/chaparral doggedness with clarity and spot on recognition, but in a manner both evocative and highly authentic. Hearty welcome to the small but burgeoning school of South Texas authenticity and singularity”~ William Jack Sibley, author Here We Go Loop De Loop
Lucy Griffith lives beside the Guadalupe River near Comfort, Texas. As a retired psychologist, she explored the imagined life of the Burro Lady of West Texas in her debut collection, We Make a Tiny Herd, earning both the Wrangler and Willa Prizes. Her second collection, Wingbeat Atlas, pairs her poems with images by wildlife photographer Ken Butler, to celebrate our citizens of the sky.