The Licorice Daughter: My Year with Ruffian

In this tribute to Ruffian, one of history's greatest horses, Lyn Lifshin races across the finish line with a collection that's both enjoyable to equestrians as well as poetry lovers. In many ways, Ruffian serves as a metaphor for Lifshin, who has spent the past 35 years galloping against the poetry establishment to create one of the most unique and underated voices in American poetry. Lifhsin captures the mystical qualities of this horse as she first charts the dream years before Ruffian's birth, to the keen retrospectives that put Ruffian's life and work in a historical perspective. The closest living embodiment of The Black Beauty, Ruffian has been called rare, bright, miraculous and perfect, and Lifshin's 113-page homage should be read for decades to come as both a tribute and elegy to this almost supernatural animal spirit.

These perfectly wrought, vivid, fast moving poems perfectly capture the essence of Ruffian, one of the horseracing world's great heroines. From this black beauty's earliest moments to the dark arrow whizzing past, Lifshin captures the spirit of this exemplary horse. Several poems from Licorice Daughter have been collected in my recent anthology EROS & EQUUS, A Passion for the Horse, (with 90 photographs by Donna DeMari) and several more beautiful poems will be included in the sequel, HEARTBEAT FOR HORSES, but anyone intersted in Ruffian should absolutely purchase Lifshin's lovely book in its entirety. It will not disapppoint you!

From the moment I read about the amazing filly's birth on that April 17, I could not put the book down. The author's reference to the star on her forehead starts the story of the exquisite star Ruffian will become and stay, carried in so many hearts for these last thirty years. I could smell the blue grass in the Kentucky fields, feel the half worried, half thrilled excitement of her unique trainer, Frank Whiteley Jr as she flew to victory after victory, a nearly black beauty, a speed freak, the darling of those who never cared about horse racing. Any one who cares about horses or any animal, will want to share this book as gifts but keep one copy near. I loved The Licorice Daughter.

Review by Laura Boss The legend of Ruffian--both glorious and heartbreaking--is captured in Lyn Lifshin's dazzling and haunting poems. I read this memorable book in one sitting, read it again, and decided to give close friends who have eveer appreciated the wild beauty of horses at the starting gate (or in fact have ever loved an animal) copies for Christmas. And though I'm a fan of Lifshin's work, for me The Licorice Daughter:My Year with Ruffian is her most outstanding and moving book. --Laura Boss

These poems do the memory and legacy of Ruffian The Beauty justice at last. Poetry is the only medium to evoke the life and tragic death of this extraordinary racehorse, and Lyn Lifshin proves to be more than up to the task in these poems. They mirror the evolution of Ruffian's athletic prowess and striking black beauty with deft attentiveness and poignant detail. They do not merely honor the memory of Ruffian, but invoke the dynamic ghost of her radiant presence and the freakishness of her speed, bringing her back to life for an interminable moment so that we can once again wonder at the stellar quality of her being. From Ruffian's birth on a quietly beautiful April night, to her tragic death due to a blunder of monumental proportions, as well as the aftermath of the euthanasia, and the outpouring of public sympathy in letters and prayer vigils, Lyn Lifshin gives us the vital phenomenon of Ruffian in all her stunning beauty and indomitable prowess. The poet's presence in these poems is in the telling in an ardent voice of velvet darkness of the birth, the cruel separation from mother, the pubescent period of lax regimentation, the grueling juvenile year and sudden blossoming into explosive black speed-freak supreme.