Hoofprints: Horse Poems

by Jessie Haas

Overview

A VOYA Poetry Pick: Award-winning author Jessie Haas takes readers on a ride back in time to celebrate the special bond between horses and humans

“We have all been changed by the horse, for better and worse.” —Jessie Haas
 
Jessie Haas travels back sixty-five million years—from 5000 BCE to the present day—in 104 poems about our equine friends.
 
Horses have shared some of the most significant moments in human history. In these lyrical and poignant pieces—some written from the horse’s point of view—readers will meet chariot racers, knights’ steeds, horse whisperers, even Pegasus, the winged horse. In one moving poem, a compassionate colt befriends a lonely man; in another, a starving soldier shares a meal with his mount. Whether it’s the thundering herd of Genghis Khan or a Dutch farmer shielding his horse from the Nazis, these transportive free-verse poems reveal how horses have influenced and enriched our lives. Hoofprints is an awe-inspiring journey through history as we gallop alongside horse and rider and experience “the mid-air moment” when “everything may yet / turn out all right.”
 
This ebook includes a bibliography and a glossary of equine terminology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781497665989
Publisher:	Open Road Media
Publication date:	09/02/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	14 - 18 Years

About the Author

Jessie Haas is the author of numerous acclaimed books for young people, including Unbroken, which was a Publishers Weekly Best Book. She lives in Westminster, Vermont, with her husband, Michael J. Daley, a children’s author. Haas began writing about horses from a young age and wrote a story during her junior year of college that became her first novel, Keeping Barney. 

Read an Excerpt

Hoofprints
Horse Poems

The Grandmother

There were dinosaurs still.
Whales ran over the earth like foxes,
and everywhere strange blunt creatures --
wolves with squared-off jaws,
enormous rodents,
sharp-toothed sheep --
ran and ate and roared and grunted.
No word had yet been spoken,
and if some thinker had a thought
we have not learned to recognize it.
In the bushes hid
a little brown animal,
knee-high;
Grandmother,
Great-grandmother,
Great-great-great --
call her the Grandmother.
Grandmother of horses.

II

Warm world.
Wet world.
Jungle-covered world.
The Grandmother hid among jungle leaves,
and ate them.
She padded softly on soft ground.
Mud squeezed between her toes
She couldn't see far --
just far enough.
Couldn't run fast --
just fast enough.

III

The world changes slowly, but it always changes.
A cool wind blowing, not as much rain.
Tomorrow it's colder, only a sprinkle.
Trees dying,
Grass growing.

Nowhere to hide.
Better run.
65 million years ago to 1.5 million years ago, North America.

Hoofprints
Horse Poems. Copyright © by Jessie Haas. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Table of Contents

	Introduction	1
	Ride Back with Me	8
	How the World Makes Horses	10
	The Grandmother	11
	I Just Wonder	14
	Evolution	16
	It's Alimentary: PowerPoint Presentation by Miohippus, late Oligocene Epoch	19
	Global Warming: What Survives Is Also Beautiful	22
	Przewalski's Horse	23
	Endless Grasses	25
	Two Legs	26
	The Great Hunt	27
	Rope Halter	29
	The Colonists	31
	First Rider	33
	She Said	34
	Moss	35
	New Words	37
	Loose	39
	Information Superhighway	42
	Song to My Horse	43
	Bone Story	44
	The Horse Camps Glitter	45
	Who Wears the Pants?	46
	The Bow-legged Girl	47
	Forever	49
	Revolution	50
	Horse and Ox	51
	Eagle Speaks	52
	The Hoofprint of Pegasus	54
	(No) Contest	56
	Messenger	57
	Hittite Chariot Horse	59
	Proof	62
	The Race before Troy	64
	The Knife Cuts Both Ways	60
	Hakma, Stigrup	70
	Afraid of His Shadow: King Philip First Sees Alexander's Greatness	72
	Winged Team	74
	A Legend of the Great Wall	75
	Pack Ponies	77
	Roman Riders	79
	Earnhardt, Adorandus	80
	Ways of Mounting	81
	Horse, Soldier, Arrow	82
	Is That So?	83
	Blessings	85
	Solomon's Horses in Mohammed's Army	86
	North Sea Farmers	87
	The Fearful Knight	90
	Muzzled	92
	Riding with the Horde	93
	Out of the East	95
	A Claim Not Made by UPS or FedEx	97
	During the Delhi Sultanate	99
	A Lady Laments the Changing Times	101
	The Black Mare's Milk	103
	Something to Remember When Aliens Land	105
	Jingle Bells in Tenochtitlan	106
	Bright with Bones	107
	Treasure	110
	The Spanish Armada Retreats	112
	On the Death of Major General Humphrey Atherton of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Author's First White American Ancestor	113
	Flare-up	114
	Gladdening	115
	Painted Horses	116
	Unnatural	118
	One Master	120
	The Gun	121
	To Water	123
	The Groom	125
	1848	127
	Foxhunt	128
	Road Apples	129
	M.A.D.D. (Modernity Against Drunk Driving)	130
	Clever Hans	131
	Foolish Creatures	133
	Abandoned, 1919	134
	Hands	137
	Big Top	139
	The Dutch Horse	141
	Triumph	143
	Company for Breakfast	145
	Means of Transport	146
	Epona Considers Her Current Position	148
	Advice to a Young Woman	151
	Horse Whisperer	152
	He Races	155
	He Organizes His Herd of Three	156
	This Rider	158
	West Palm	162
	Therapeutic	164
	Mangalarga Marchador	165
	Innocent Engines of War	166
	Behind the Supermarket	167
	Efficient	168
	Peasant Eyes	170
	Down the Side Street	172
	Dappled Things	173
	Race Riders	175
	Buzkazhi	177
	If Required	178
	The Mid-Air Moment	180
	The Color of Heaven	182
	Afterword	185
	Glossary	194
	Bibliography	205

Editorial Reviews

Haas takes the idea that poetry can tell stories a step further than usual here: into history, more specifically, the history of the horse. She does this in 104 poems, from the first horse-like multi-toed creatures 65 million years ago ("Couldn't run fast- / just fast enough") to modern-day dressage ("This rider, / in black jacket, white breeches, / is accountable for each step taken"), from Holland to Iraq to Mesopotamia, from the horse as meat to transport, to companion, and back to meat again. The language is precise, careful, and true; the history multifaceted as history should be. "The fantastic happens daily, even now/and daily we record it. / In time our descendents will prove/that it was possible." Ambitious, accomplished, adventuresome. (Poetry. 10+)

Kirkus Reviews