Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful (6 page)

BOOK: Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful
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Walker with celebrated historian Howard Zinn, who taught one of her classes at Spelman College, in the 1960s. Walker developed a lifelong friendship with Zinn and considered him one of her mentors. The two shared a passion for political activism and a desire to shed light on the conditions of the oppressed. “I was Howard’s student for only a semester,” she says, “but in fact, I have learned from him all my life. His way with resistance—steady, persistent, impersonal, often with humor—is a teaching I cherish.”

A photograph of Walker taken in 2007 at a ceremony for her dog, Marley, and her cat, Surprise. “Marley appeared,” she says, but “Surprise slept through it!”

Walker at her country home in Northern California, where she has lived since the early 1980s. “What attracted me to this part of the world—Northern California—is really the resemblance to Georgia that it has,” she once told an interviewer. “This has been a very good place for me,” she went on, “a very good place for dreaming.”

Walker writing on the front porch of her California home. She has lived in many different places throughout the world—including Africa, Hawaii, and Mexico—and finding a place to write has always been a matter of utmost importance for her. She once said that “books and houses” are what she “longed for most as a child.” Years after her tenant farming childhood, Walker is happy to have a place she can truly call home.

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A number of these poems were previously published in
Callaloo
,
Family Circle
,
Freedomways
,
Hurricane Alice
,
Ms.
, and
Vanity Fair
.

The lyrics quoted in “These Days” are from “Hold On John” (John Lennon) © 1971 Northern Songs Limited. All rights for the U.S.A. and Mexico controlled by Maclen Music, Inc., c/o ATV Music Corp. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

copyright © 1984, 1983, 1981, 1980, 1979 by Alice Walker

cover design by Milan Bozic

978-1-4532-2404-5

This edition published in 2011 by Open Road Integrated Media

180 Varick Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com

EBOOKS BY ALICE WALKER

FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA

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