Wendell Hawken
Crossing the Country to Help our Huntsman Exercise Hounds
Our horses in the gooseneck,
We’re in this capsule of a truck cab
Headlights probing thick fog, hurtling through time
And space between white and double yellow lines.
Good way to hit a deer, he says. They move around
this time of morning.
Retrospective
Wendell Hawken / Matthew Klein photo
Introducing a new poem by the contemporary Poet Laureate of foxhunting.
When I rode,
I rode on a loose rein,
kept a good horse
Within the Confines of this Pasture, How the Universe Is Understood
Wendell Hawken / Matthew Klein photo
September pitch-black mornings I leave the lights off
so I can see to find my horse out in his field,
his flat black shape darker than the dark.
Rope and halter in one hand, ankle-deep in tall grass dew,
I walk to where he might be – beside his rock outcrop,
or rump up to his poplar.
Morning Stables
Stride for Stride: A Country Life, Bartley Books, an imprint of Three Pounds Press, Millwood, Virginia, 2020, paper, cover art by Anita Baarns, 70 pp, 43 poems. Available from the author.This slim, award-winning volume of forty-three poems by Wendell Hawken speaks of horses, foxhounds, and country life. Writing with authority on hunting, scent, whelping, riding, animal husbandry, and woodlore, Wendy conjures vivid mental images easily recognized and pleasurably savored by foxhunters who have ‘been there.’ Several of the poems have been previously published in Foxhunting Life, eliciting high praise from readers and establishing this author, in my view, as the most prolific, talented, and serious writer of sporting poetry of the present time.
Wendy's poem, "Morning Stables," from this collection will resonate with horsemen and horsewomen who have tended their own, and will jiggle old memories especially of those who were favored with the horse gene as children, and no one else really understood!
Whelping Foxhounds
When Bay Cockburn was huntsman of the Loudoun West Hunt (VA), he would allow the author to bring the bitches home to whelp in a quiet place during the point-to-point season when he was busy racing. “It was so much fun,” says Wendell.
Beneath the cone of heat lamp light,
in the time it takes to break
a sack, wipe clear a face, and head-down shake
all wet away, I urge this not-yet-
breathing-thing: Come in,
Falling Off
No fear, suspended
in slow time.
Afterward,
recite your name,
say you’re fine.
Believe it.
Climb back on to prove it.
Ride along, wondering
how you got to Goose Creek –
Secular Prayer
This poem is from a collection by the author being prepared for publication with the working title, Stride for Stride. Wendell Hawken earned her MFA in Poetry at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, NC. Collections of her poems include, The Luck of Being, published by The Backwaters Press, Omaha (2008) and The Spinal Sequence by Finishing Line Press, Georgetown, Kentucky (2013). Individual poems have appeared in literary magazines including Narrative, Shenandoah, Southern Poetry Review, and Poet Lore as well as in Foxhunting Life.
Strike Hound
Nancy Kleck photo The fox crossed here, a car followerPoints as the foxhound pack roils roadside,Takes the scent up onto the asphalt, Loses the line, circles back to churn againWhile one tri-color, by herself, crosses over, Scrambles up the stone wall, squeezes Through the boards on top, runs nose-downSerpentines until she finds, gives tongue On the fox’s line. The pack comes to her,Oh yes, hot fox, they bay, go screaming off as one. That’s the bitch I want to be. Wendell Hawken earned her MFA in Poetry at Warren Wilson College in Swannannoa, NC. Collections of her poems include, The Luck of Being, published by The Backwaters Press, Omaha, in 2008 and The Spinal Sequence by Finishing Line Press, Georgetown, Kentucky in 2013. Individual poems have appeared in literary magazines including Narrative, Shenandoah, Southern Poetry Review, and Poet Lore.... This content is for subscribers only.Join NowAlready a member? Log in here
Read More
