Louise McNeill has published, in addition to her several books of poetry, short stories and essays. She has been poet laureate of West Virginia since 1979, and in 1988 she was awarded the Appalachian Gold Medallion by the University of Charleston.
"In this graceful, poignant memoir, poet McNeill writes of the West
Virginia land that has been in her family for nine generations."
--Publishers Weekly
"Delicate, tensile, bittersweet, Louise McNeill's The Milkweed
Ladies is a memoir of importance, full of detail about the soul of
a place--our place--and the influence of a now lost world on an
accomplished individual life." --Jayne Anne Phillips
"Oh what a treasure of weathered beauty and wisdom this book is;
what a magical evocation, not only of seventy-five years of deepest
living in this our time, but also informed with a poet's memoried
sense of nine generations of her people." --Tillie Olsen
"In this graceful, poignant memoir, poet McNeill writes of the West
Virginia land that has been in her family for nine generations."
--Publishers Weekly
"Delicate, tensile, bittersweet, Louise McNeill's The Milkweed
Ladies is a memoir of importance, full of detail about the soul of
a place--our place--and the influence of a now lost world on an
accomplished individual life." --Jayne Anne Phillips
"Oh what a treasure of weathered beauty and wisdom this book is;
what a magical evocation, not only of seventy-five years of deepest
living in this our time, but also informed with a poet's memoried
sense of nine generations of her people." --Tillie
Olsen
Poetically and magically, McNeill unfolds her memories of the farm at Swago Crick, West Virginia, which has existed in her family for nine generationsover 200 years. Through intimate reflection of a place seen over time, she provides at once a glimpse of rural America and of world history. She describes Swago Crick not only by its geography but also by its annual cycle of activities and its people. Among the relatives she introduces is her colorful Granny Fanny, who seems to have ``set her thorn broom handle into the world's axis and brought it to a grinding halt,'' until the advent of the automobile made her jerk it out. Recommended. Jeris Cassel, Rutgers Univ. Libs., New Brunswick, N.J.
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