Pegasus Buchanan

I found 2 chapbooks by a Pegasus Buchanan on ebay for very little money. Never heard of her, the seller lived in California. Why not? What I got when they arrived were two rather interesting enigmas.


River Path
Pegasus Buchanan
self published
Ponoma, California
(c) 1965

Chestnut Street
Pegasus Buchanan
self published
Ponoma, California
(c)1965

Pegasus Buchanan is as much "from another generation" as poets in the 1850's would have been to her. She is what I would call a "watercolorist" as a poet. Her poems, not surprisingly, were often published in various US magazines in the 1950s & 1960s. Each of her chapbooks were illustrated by someone named Jane Forsyth.

Ms. Buchanan was born in 1918 and died in 2006. In her adult life she was known as a mainstay of the California Federation of Chaparral Poets. She had served as President of this organization over many years and sat on their annual poetry contest committee.

She was a third generation poet. Her mother and grandmother each were poets. (how rare is that in America? Three generations of women poets in the same family???!!)

While this is commendable, her work is trite and trivial. It's "safe". It's Saturday Evening Post - safe. The exact type of poetry that modern and post-modern and the Beat poets were revolting against. And the rhyme schemes? SO dull and predictable that I was bored early on in each book, I don't believe I actually read through either. Honest, not my cup of tea. I actually like TEA in my tea. Something to taste. Not simply "Isn't that nice" sentimentality. (because, of course, it isn't nice!!)

Think Woman's Club socials and after church gathering in the village green - that's what this is. Double ugh.