title: Wild Horses, Wild Dreams: New and Selected Poems 1971-2010 (Io Poetry Series)
author:  Lindy Hough 
description: &ldquo;Desire in all its radical re/solve is the dancing focus and a lightning bug in Lindy Hough&rsquo;s poetry history. It is the delight in her language of quest and discovery; the joy of intellect and raw nature, <i>&lsquo;faithful to mystery.&rsquo;&rdquo;</i> <br> &mdash;Thurston Moore, poet and musician<br><br>&ldquo;Lindy Hough follows her words along the path of the poem &hellip; I&rsquo;m delighted to follow along, the poems picking a way through intellectual, cultural and personal histories. They are hers but they are mine too. These wild horses, these wild dreams&mdash;she&rsquo;s become very wise in the making of her poems.&rdquo;<br>&mdash;Bobby Byrd, publisher, author of <i>White Panties, Dead Friends</i><br><br>&ldquo;She constructs meaning from gardens, marriage, motherhood, meditation, and movement until there is &lsquo;a self one can live with.&rsquo; Hough reminds us what it is to search and ultimately to find.&rdquo;<br>&mdash;Summer Brenner, author <i>I-5: A Novel of Crime, Transport, and Sex</i><br><br>&ldquo;Hough speaks her life, full of quick motion and oblique meetings and desperate accommodations. She makes us remember that she is a dancer&mdash;the one kind of artist who has to be all over the place to be at home. For all the dance, there is Yankee toughness here &hellip; We&rsquo;ve had to wait a long time for this collection of her work, and it&rsquo;s worth the wait.&rdquo;<br>&mdash;Robert Kelly, author of <i>May Day</i><br><br>&ldquo;Lindy Hough trained to be a dancer. How to dance sitting down, Olson said&mdash;a metaphor, if you will, for the work of the poet. But for Hough, as for Olson, the knowledge dance demands of the body and of the mind: its movement, the place it occupies, the one it moves in (which changes the terms of the equation) is integral to the rhythm and force&mdash;the <i>virtu, </i>Pound called it&mdash;of her poetry. 'Because we can't get a start/Anywhere but here,' she says. The poet takes us through the rhythms of everyday, the daily quotidian&mdash;stretching, listening to herself, feeling the floor where she stands, moving, testing. Hough&rsquo;s work shows an ability to map what George Oppen called 'The thing seen each day, whose meaning has become the meaning and the color of our lives.'&rdquo;<br>&#160;&mdash;Robert Buckeye, author of <i>Still Lives</i> <br>&#160;<br> &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s the arc of a whole life given to poetry, thought, and feeling, what Lindy Hough has lived and imagined her way through up to now. The work in these pages is powerful, vital, daring, liberating, and essential. Read this book!&rdquo;<br>&mdash;Bill Zavatsky, author of <i>Where X Marks the Spot</i><br>&#160; <br> &ldquo;<i>Wild Horses, Wild Dreams</i> begins with poems that are a search for identity and answers to life&rsquo;s fundamental questions. The volume ends with an acceptance of life itself, as in the captivating &ldquo;Thursday Night at Saul&rsquo;s.&rdquo; In her musical language, Lindy Hough creates in her reader a passion for the wild horses of life, or unpredictable reality.&#160; This is an insightful gift from a <i>griot</i> and major poet who has traveled so far since the early seventies.<br><br> Through vivid details, Hough gives us snapshots of people&mdash;close family and friends, sometimes complete strangers; often the strangers are treated as though they are long lost friends, often those closest to her are seen as if for the first time. As a major poet, Lindy Hough demonstrates that memory, language, and personal history are the true sources of inspiration for contemporary living.&rdquo;<br>&mdash;Cecil Brown, author of <i>I, Stagolee</i><br> &#160; <br> &ldquo;Lindy Hough has written a remarkable book. <i>Wild Horses, Wild Dreams: New and Selected Poems 1971-2010 </i>is an investigation of the integrities that comprise a self, courageously. In early sections Hough wrestles with the disjunction of articulation and abstraction underneath which she swirls with feeling, addressing relationships in the past, her individuation from (and commitment to) society in all its variegation, including family and spiritual direction. By the time of the later New Poems, she knows to fend for herself&rsquo;&mdash;earlier influences, poetic and spiritual, are absorbed. The language is direct and lyrical&mdash;a distillate. <br> &#160;<br> 'Insouciant Elephant' is a good example&mdash;'Wild mind leaping/tricking itself and you,/among dizzying mirrors/distancing you from everything/tearing yourself down by a zillion/fears--/Stop it. Reach to/something life-giving,/holy.'&rdquo;<br> &mdash;David Gitin, author of <i>The Journey Home</i><br><br>&ldquo;Hough's poetry is contemplative and often hinges on nuance of language and of personality... After retiring in July after 36 years at the helm of North Atlantic Books, juggling work and family with her own creative life, it might be said that Lindy Hough has found a viable persona. She is excited to have the long-earned freedom to devote herself to a new daily struggle -- writing full time -- and to new artistic visions.&rdquo;<br> &mdash;<i>SF Weekly</i><br><br>&ldquo;<i>Wild Horses, Wild Dreams</i> is an excellent compilation of poetry, highly recommended.&rdquo;<br>&mdash;Midwest Book Review<br><br>&ldquo;<i>Wild Horses, Wild Dreams</i> is a retrospective of Hough&rsquo;s 40 years as a poet and draws on works from her previous four poetry books as well as introducing 28 new poems. The book showcases Hough&rsquo;s evolution from a young mother in her early 20s to an accomplished figure in the publishing industry, one who has contemplated rural life, the dynamics of a college town, dreams, dance, and religion in its many forms, including Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism.&rdquo;<br>&mdash;<i>Berkeleyside<br><br>"</i>Lindy Hough writes poetry as if it is a second language she is fluent in. The words have a rich cadence and meaning, they flow so smoothly. I truly enjoyed this collection."<br>&mdash;Great Minds Think Aloud Book Club
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  ![](index-1_1.png)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## **Table of Contents**
  
  
  ### Scheherazade
  
  
  
  
  
  Dirty Valentine
  
  
  Little Beast
  
  
  Seaside Improvisation
  
  
  The Torn-Up Road
  
  
  Litany In Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out
  
  
  +
  
  
  Visible World
  
  
  Boot Theory
  
  
  A Primer For The Small Weird Loves
  
  
  Unfinished Duet
  
  
  I Had A Dream About You
  
  
  Straw House, Straw Dog
  
  
  Saying Your Names
  
  
  +
  
  
  Planet of Love
  
  
  Driving, Not Washing
  
  
  Road Music
  
  
  The Dislocated Room
  
  
  You Are Jeff
  
  
  Meanwhile
  
  
  Snow and Dirty Rain
  
  
  _Note: this is compiled for educational purposes only and NOT for resale or
  profit. Formatting is_
  
  
  _as close to the original typeset as possible. Louise Glück's introduction is
  not included within_
  
  
  _this document due to lack of online availability. All poems belong to Richard
  Siken, © 2005._
  
  
  I
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## **Scheherazade**
  
  
  Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake
  
  
  and dress them in warm clothes again.
  
  
  How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses run