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LISTEN: Lisa Stewart On A Missed Switchback And Horse-Shaped Bones

Laura Spencer
/
KCUR

Creative and commercial writer Lisa Stewart has traveled thousands of miles as a long-distance horseback rider, through the Rockies and the Midwest. In 2012, she took at 500-mile solo ride in Kansas and Missouri. 

Stewart's latest series of poems is called “The Points of the Horse." She explores one physical aspect of a horse in each poem, such as the flank or the jaw, "incorporating my memories of my lifelong assocation with horses and my love for them." 

The poem "Mandible" details an episode in 1982 during a 3,000-mile horseback trip. Accompanied by five horses, Stewart and her former husband camped and rode from New Mexico to Wyoming to Missouri. The horse in this story, Stewart's "childhood pet" Tobasco, did survive the journey. 

All of our WORD readings, including bonus tracks by some poets, are archived onSoundCloud.

Laura Spencer is staff writer/editor at the Kansas City Public Library and a former arts reporter at KCUR.
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