Stone Roses

In Stone Roses, Linda Neal Reising captures the soul of a time and place that too many of our history textbooks try to ignore. And she does it through a series of captivating snapshots of the lives of extraordinary women who were almost forgotten.With a keen, and sometimes humorous, eye on an often difficult and dark period, Reising makes these views of late 19th century Oklahoma Territory, and the women who helped make it, absolutely panoramic. This book is a treasure of preservation, and it should serve as one of the new textbooks of the times.

-Nathan Brown, Former Oklahoma Poet Laureate & Author of A Hundred Years

Linda Neal Reising’s Stone Roses not only resurrects voices of resilient women from Oklahoma’s past, it also gives them a platform to speak down the decades to younger generations. In gorgeous, sometimes heartbreaking lines, we-all peoples-are reminded that we’re descendants of heroic women. And, we need to be reminded, to garner a modicum of their gumption for use when facing our own struggles.

-Jeanetta Calhoun Mish, Oklahoma Poet Laureate 2017-2020 & Author of What I Learned at the War

In poems that are vivid and poignant, Stone Roses brings to life the voices rising from the blood and sweat soaked soil of a land in transition. Each poem is a short story in verse, 48 tightly condensed tales of violence, love, desperation, beauty, and hope. Here are tales of ordinary women heroically building their homes, eking out their hard living, raising their children, burying their dead, and generally holding on to life the way strong women do. You will know these women. These are the women who have carried us time and again.

-Benjamin Myers, Former Oklahoma Poet Laureate & Author of Lapse Americana