Poetry. Hailed by a host of writers on its first publication in 1982, HARD COUNTRY went out of print in 1987 but has continued to enjoy an underground reputation. In reissuing this book, West End Press salutes one of the most dynamic and moving American poems of the latter half of the twentieth century. A tree sprouts/ from my buried heart/ America's images take place in my bones/ in the world's valley, low/ and open. One great poem, an epic poem in the proper sense, a personal journey but also the foundation myth of a culture: the seeker is the American earth herself incarnate in the voice of the poet, and the hero is collective -- the voices of its living commingling with those of the dead, through 'the terror of all history'! -- Carolyn ForchA[a_A.