Poems of Sac Prairie, Volume 2

As he entered his most productive period of literary activity in the 1940s, August Derleth continued to augment his novels and tales with a bounty of sensitive poems. His third and fourth volumes of poetry, Here on a Darkling Plain (1940) and Wind in the Elms (1941), focus on many of the same motifs that make his other work so distinctive: the emotive power of landscape, both natural and human-created; the recurring rhythm of the seasons; the thrill of innocent childhood; and so on. Two separate sequences of poems to a woman disguised as "Maris" speak of the depth of Derleth's love and devotion, while elegies to Zona Gale and others tell of the author's unshakable love for his native state of Wisconsin and the people and places that make it special. In all these poems Derleth's sensitivity to the natural world and all its inhabitants shines through poignantly.