In the Colorado Gold Fever Mountains
Through vivid and exciting free verse, Robert Cooperman shares an intimate view into the thoughts and lives of the people who toiled and loved and died in the early mining camps of Colorado's rugged Rocky Mountains. Experience the old mountain West through the voices of the people who lived it. This book is really three books in one: In the Gold Fever Mountains, A Coffin and A Carved Stone, and The Badman and the Lady.
- Published
- 1999
- ISBN
- 1-890437-32-8
- Pages
- 212
- Place
- Rocky Mountain
- Publisher
- Western Reflections
- Listed at
- $10.74
Publication details from Open Library. The price shown is the last one on record and is historic, not a current offer.
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About this book
In the Colorado Gold Fever Mountains is a book of narrative poetry about the early mining camps of Colorado's Rocky Mountains. Robert Cooperman writes in free verse and speaks through the people who toiled, loved and died there, so the old mountain West comes to you in the voices of the people who lived it.
The description says it is really three books in one: In the Gold Fever Mountains, A Coffin and A Carved Stone, and The Badman and the Lady.
The book won the Colorado Book Award for Poetry for 2000. The Colorado Encyclopedia cites it as a contemporary example of Colorado's historic-narrative poetry, and a Smartish Pace biography dates the Western Reflections edition to 1999. The catalogue lists 212 pages, and library subject headings include mines and mineral resources, gold mines and mining, poetry, and frontier and pioneer life.
Who it is for
Poetry readers who enjoy a story told in many voices will find that here, as will people who read Colorado mining history and want the human side of the camps. It is a collection of three books in one, so you can dip in by section or read the parts in order.
Ways to use this book
Reading poems with a timeline beside you
Narrative verse about camps is easier to follow when you know which decade each camp belonged to. Skim the gold rush entry first, then read a poem and note which boom the speaker seems to live in.
Taking the book to a mining town
Pick a camp that still has a main street, such as Cripple Creek, and read the encyclopedia profile before you go. Reading aloud a few pages in a quiet spot makes a good start to a day of walking the streets.
Starting a poetry shelf of the West
Use the Colorado poetry essay to find other Western poets, and compare their treatment of history with the voices in this book.
Go deeper
This book of narrative poems speaks for people in Colorado's early mining camps. Reading about the real gold rush and the archives that hold its records can give those voices a factual backdrop.
Colorado Gold Rush, Colorado Encyclopedia
An encyclopedia entry saying the discovery of gold near present day Denver in 1858 and 1859 drew thousands of people and led to the creation of a territory and later a state.
Cripple Creek, Colorado Encyclopedia
A town profile with period photographs, describing how Fremont and Hayden Placer merged into one boom town in the 1890s.
Colorado Poetry, Colorado Encyclopedia
An essay on the state's poetry that discusses Western verse and the way Colorado history shows up in poems.
Good to know
Is this prose or poetry?
Did it win any awards?
What are the three books inside?
Where can I buy it?
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