Tamsen Donner
Ruth Whitman
"Ruth Whitman has recreated the journal that Tamsen Donner lost on her nightmarish journey to California in 1846. With a grant from the National
Endowment, Whitman traveled along the route of the Donner party, keeping her own diary and watching the American landscape unfold as it did to the eyes
of a ninteenth-century New Englander. The journal, transforming historical fact into poetic insight, is a testimony to the optimism, dogged survival, integrity
and courage of a woman pioneer."
—Janet Falon, The Boston Globe
"A work of beauty and force...a major achievement."
—Booklist
"Ruth Whitman is a poet whose language takes on the harsh beauty of the land Donner crosses towards California in 1846...This is Tamsen's journey, the
journey that now draws us to Whitman's luminous retelling."
—The Boston Globe
about the author
During her lifetime, Ruth Whitman was the author of eight books of poetry, including Laughing Gas: Poems New and Selected 1963 - 1990 and Permanent Address, and translator of the Yiddish poetry of Abraham Sutzkever. She was a recipient of a Senior Fulbright Writer-in-Residence Fellowship to Hebrew University in Jerusalem, a Bunting Institute Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Grant.
