At Home on the Slopes of Mountains: the Story of Peggy Pond Church

Peggy Pond Church has been called the First Lady of New Mexican Poetry; 'a significant American voice.' Now her story appears in a biography that traces a historic life through canyons, ruins, trails and tall pines, a great flood and the loss of her home to the Manhattan Project of World War II. Born in 1903 on a ranch in the territory of New Mexico, Church lived in Pajarito Canyon and at the Los Alamos Ranch School before being uprooted during the war to live the second half of her life in Taos, Berkeley, and Santa Fe. Although her poetry has many inspirations and sensitive observations of land and people, she once described it by commenting, 'It's the land that wants to be said.' Church's journey is revealed also in her books of poetry and in her own memoir of Edith Warner, The House at Otowi Bridge. In 1984 she received the Governor's Award for Excellence and Achievement in the Arts and was also named a Living Treasure of Santa Fe. Church also wrote eight volumes of poetry during her life, with many poems still being published. At Home on the Slopes of Mountains is beautifully crafted using Church's poems, journals, correspondence, and interviews with friends, family. Sharon Snyder writes a full-blown, emotional life portrait that presents the essence of the land, the culture, and the history of Northern New Mexico as well as Peggy's sensitivity to it. A must read for literary and women's studies groups, or anyone wanting to know more about 20th century New Mexico as seen through the eyes of a poet, and her biographer.