Lone Star Heart

Lone Star Heart: Poems of a life in Texas, is a 120-page softcover 8 x 10 inch book, containing 55 poems about Texas. The book is divided into 4 sections: Texas weather, Texas places, Texas critters, and Texas folks. It also contains 15 full-color paintings by artist Johnny Bowen. Lone Star Heart was nominated for poetry book of the year for the Texas Institute of Letters.   From the Introduction:

Unlike those non-native Texans who “got here as soon as they could,” I had no need to hurry to sink my roots. I’m a fourth generation Texan with Indian blood as well as Anglo (and probably some other exotic ethnic ingredients as well). I’ve traveled and resided over much of Texas, though I’ve always considered Fort Worth my home. I was born and reared up in Cowtown, just north of the Stockyards, just west of a Dow chemical plant, and just east of a horse rendering plant. Seemed like we only got a breath of fresh air when a blue norther came thru.
My subdivision was the northern-most residential area of Fort Worth back then, so there were open fields all around, with creeks, ponds, arroyos, and rocky, fossil-filled hills inviting exploration. It wasn’t beautiful, but it was nature. I naturally slipped into the role of amateur naturalist, and when the space program came along, I became a science enthusiast and would-be astronaut. I built a Newtonian telescope for the night and a biology/chemistry lab in my bedroom for the day. I devoured science books and science-fiction. Many of the poems in this collection reflect my lifelong love of nature and science.
I had relatives all over north Texas, so most summers during my teens I would visit with my grandparents or cousins in west Texas. My family also traveled the state for cheap vacations during my childhood summers. Several of my experiences during those visits and trips are poetically recounted in these pages. Our family built a lake house on Palo Pinto Lake (back when it actually contained water) on weekends over a period of years. It took so long because my dad, an aircraft engineer at Convair, now Lockheed, and used to dealing in tolerances of thousandths of an inch, would have us tear out a wall or joist if it was off square by more than a quarter of an inch. But we had many wonderful experiences there and several are recounted as poems in this volume.
I divided this book into sections of poems relating to notorious aspects of Texas: its treacherous weather, its variety of geography and locale, its curious and historic creatures, and its fabulous folks, all of which I have experienced in various adventures that, it seemed to me, might be had only in Texas (or, at least, with a distinctive Texas flavor). Indeed, I’ve attempted to fit the flavor of the poem to its subject matter. Those poems dealing with the beauty and majesty of the Texas landscape are presented, I hope, with the same awe they inspired in me. Those poems dealing with Texas critters are written with more tenderness and humor. I tried to inject some degree of Texas history into many of the poems. Those historical elements are mostly taken from my reading of the great book, Lone Star, by T.R. Fehrenbach, but any historical errors are certainly mine. Several of the poems are taken from the stories and doings of my friend, Frank, one of the most gently outrageous characters I’ve had the privilege of knowing. I’ve tried to imbue them with the same insouciant tall-tailedness with which Frank presented them to me. However, those poems based on my own experiences are, of course, absolutely genuine.

Whether the reader is a Texan or someone with no knowledge of the state, Lone Star Heart will bring new insights and warm, sublime meditative moments, indeed, the book, when taken as a whole, could be understood as one long meditation. The narrative poems, some poignantly personal, like his powerful elegiac tribute to his father and his daughter, Kite Kin, are full of factual insights and accented with Johnny Bowen’s heart-felt paintings. Baldwin, whose poems I have been privileged to enjoy reading for the many years he has been perfecting his art, are always fully informed close observations of the natural world sprinkled with the mystical—landscapes of the physical and the ineffable. Dave Parsons, 2011 Texas Poet Laureate.

Click on this link to view a video-audio of one of the poems in Lone Star Heart: