After Hopper & Lange is forthcoming from Oversteps Books in 2021.
In an era of homelessness and wealth inequality, this is a poetry collection of contemporary social relevance. After Hopper & Lange narrates selected images by painter Edward Hopper (1882-1967), photographer Dorothea Lange (1895-1965), and other American contemporaries with similar concerns. Their paintings and photographs documented the alienation and dispossession experienced by Americans in the 1930s and 1940s, during the transforming events of the Great Depression and the Second World War. This collection describes the conditions the people encountered, and their great exodus. Most of these hard-working men and women were victims of circumstances beyond their control. Severe drought and strong winds – such as might be caused by climate change today – stripped topsoil from previously fertile land. Mortgages routinely incurred during planting were foreclosed when crop failures meant that seasonal debts could not be repaid. Mechanization made family farmers uncompetitive, and enabled larger agribusinesses to consolidate control of large tracts of land when conditions improved. Throughout, the neglect of persons in high authority combined to create incalculable misery and homelessness. Meanwhile, industrialization alienated people in cities and towns. Despite these hardships, this book celebrates the dignity and resilience of individuals who survived those fraught times, and commemorates the lives of those who didn’t.
In an era of homelessness and wealth inequality, this is a poetry collection of contemporary social relevance. After Hopper & Lange narrates selected images by painter Edward Hopper (1882-1967), photographer Dorothea Lange (1895-1965), and other American contemporaries with similar concerns. Their paintings and photographs documented the alienation and dispossession experienced by Americans in the 1930s and 1940s, during the transforming events of the Great Depression and the Second World War. This collection describes the conditions the people encountered, and their great exodus. Most of these hard-working men and women were victims of circumstances beyond their control. Severe drought and strong winds – such as might be caused by climate change today – stripped topsoil from previously fertile land. Mortgages routinely incurred during planting were foreclosed when crop failures meant that seasonal debts could not be repaid. Mechanization made family farmers uncompetitive, and enabled larger agribusinesses to consolidate control of large tracts of land when conditions improved. Throughout, the neglect of persons in high authority combined to create incalculable misery and homelessness. Meanwhile, industrialization alienated people in cities and towns. Despite these hardships, this book celebrates the dignity and resilience of individuals who survived those fraught times, and commemorates the lives of those who didn’t.
