Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful

The title of this collection comes from a Native American shaman who, reflecting on the terrible problems brought by white colonizers, nearly forgave them all because with the settlers came horses to the North American Plains.

And, indeed, in these poems we find Alice Walker seeking a saving grace even in the most difficult circumstances, and in the hearts of the most brutal oppressors.

Here Walker's attention turns toward the small moments and subliminal exchanges between lovers and enemies, even as her verse addresses concerns as vast as the choking of the planet by war and pollution.