Bitter Creek Junction Album

Poetry of the American West

The West found in Linda Hasselstrom’s poems is neither the mythical Old West nor the New West of ranchettes and trophy homes. Hasselstrom’s aria is set to the rhythms of the authentic West, laced with lyrical realism, and distilled to the sharp crispness of a plains morning.

Here you’ll find the night heron whose “slender beak descends, a sudden hammer on a silver spine.” You’ll “give yourself sunsets…in shades of pink and gold” while “long tatters curl eastward like discarded ribbons.”

27 poems, written and read by Linda M. Hasselstrom

CONTENTS

WHERE THE STORIES COME FROM

• 01 Make a Hand
• 02 The Cost of a Badger Hat
• 03 Haystack: May Afternoon
• 04 Death of the Last Cowhand
• 05 Making Chokecherry Jam
• 06 International Incident
• 07 Extended Forecast
• 08 Walking City Streets
• 09 Where the Stories Come From

JIGSAW DANCE

• 10 A Northern Woman Takes the Golden Road
• 11 The Wine Trees of Vallecitos
• 12 My Mother’s Thumb
• 13 The Poet Contemplates a Night Heron
• 14 The Empty Highway, The Unwritten Poem
• 15 Loving the Cabinetmaker
• 16 Rhubarb Pie
• 17 Pesto, On the Anniversary of Your Death
• 18 Birthday Presents
• 19 Jigsaw Dance

BITTER CREEK JUNCTION

• 20 Benediction for Sweat
• 21 After Your Funeral
• 22 Reading in Bed
• 23 Deathbed Gift
• 24 Widow’s Homemade Sachet
• 25 Café Sleep
• 26 How Women Laugh in the Company of Men
• 27 Bitter Creek Junction

The individual readings are saved as a single compressed downloadable file. After checking out, you will be able to access the downloadable file, and you will receive an email verifying your purchase with a downloable link. Once you’ve downloaded the .zip file to your hard drive, double click (or right-click and indicate where you’d like to save the files) to decompress the folder containing the audio files. The files are saved in .mp3 format, which are playable using Apple Music, or Windows Media Player. There are many free music players available today, for both Windows and Mac. This article has a good overview of several Windows apps.

Compressed file, 108Mb Download