Laura and Lena On The Prairie

Okay, this is sort of getting out of control now.

I ordered The Love Song of Laura Ingalls Wilder this week, which -- get this, y'all -- it's a book of poems by Sharon McCartney, each poem written from the POV of some character or object or (ahem) bit of a character from the Little House books.

(Bit because one of the poems, page 36, is "Pa's Penis."  PA'S PENIS, Y'ALL!! )

Anyway -- I like the collection a lot, and the titular poem a whole lot --

Let us go then, Lena and I, on black ponies,
Half-wild, bareback, like straddling locomotives, 
Surging across the prairie steppes, Cossacks,
Fourth of July stunt-riders, skirts up,
Worsted drawers damp, dappled with horse sweat.

(Oh yes, this is going exactly where you think it is.)

I've also spent this week finishing Fellman's book, reading Wendy McClure's The Wilder Life, and ordering about a dozen other books, most of which (luckily) my local library has.

This could quickly get to be an expensive obsession.

Wendy McClure's book was great, by the way: she also got obsessed with Wilder, only she also got obsessed with visiting all the houses and homesteads.  Her book is half a narration of her obsession with Laura and half a travelogue of her visits to the Laura Houses. (I've only visited one of these places, the Little House just outside Independence, Kansas, a few years ago.)

Now I'm waiting for the rest of my books to arrive.

I tell you what, if I do teach a class on Major Authors: Laura Ingalls Wilder, the big problem I'll have is keeping the reading list manageable.

See also this.  Because BWAHAHA.