MARCH 27, 2006

Contact Person:            Karen Rossman

                                    Museum

                                    505/538-6386

Subject:                        An Early Spring Evening with Author

                                    Bonnie Buckley Maldonado

Date:                            April 12, 2006

Time:                            5:00 PM to 6:30 PM

“Native as the sweet grass of Montana, this poetry, passionate and compassionate, mourning song and tribute, rises and waves with the spirits of Montana’s past.  This beautiful first volume proves Bonnie Buckley Maldonado to be the hard-won, miraculous bloom of her people, their land, and history.  Without a doubt, she is Montana’s unofficial poet laureate.  I read this finely wrought story-in-poems, and wept.”

Victoria Edwards Tester, author of Miracles of Sainted Earth,

Winner of the 2003 Willa Cather Literary Award in Poetry

“Ms. Maldonado’s sense of rhythm, converging with imagery, captures an honesty found only in the West.”

John Gist, author of CrowHeart and Lizard Dreaming of Birds

“Bonnie Buckley Maldonado has written a book of Western story poems that touches my mind, and soul, and no matter your background, will touch you too.  If you are looking for what it means to be a Westerner, you will find it in Bonnie’s  poems.

Nelson L. Haggerson, Jr., fellow rancher, poet, professor, and editor

Many people know popular Silver City resident and educator Bonnie Maldonado, but few may be aware that she is a poet and a fourth generation member of a northern Montana ranching family.  All will be revealed when you attend her book signing and reading on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 from 5:00pm to 6:30pm in celebration of her latest publication, From the Marias River to the North Pole: A Montana History In Story Poems (Faraway Press; April, 2006.)  Please join Bonnie, some close friends and the WNMU Museum staff, so we may share the joy with her and peruse her newly published labor of love which will be available for purchase and a personal signature. 

Dr. Maldonado did a prodigious amount of historical research for her book which is seamlessly woven throughout the stories.  Her poems record the tales of four generation of oral storytellers beginning with her great grandfather who was a seanchai or storyteller in County Cork, Ireland. The story poems begin at Blarney Castle Ranch and follow the family, friends and neighbors through triumph and ordeal. The lives of the Montanans portrayed in these poems are transformed by pain and hardship.  Their spiritual survival through the loss of land, several wars, and the Great Depression is made possible through faith, laughter, love, resilience, and redemption.  These stories are accompanied by archival photographs and take place from 1877 to the 1990s.

About the Author:

Bonnie Buckley Maldonado has been a resident of Grant County, N.M. for almost fifty years.  She says her love for New Mexico and Montana is equal.  She holds an A.A. degree in Education from the Territorial College of Guam, a B.S. Degree in Education and an M.A. degree in Counseling from Western New Mexico University, and a doctoral degree from New Mexico State University.  She is retired from WNMU  where she was a professor and dean.  She is co-founder of Border Area Mental Health, and El Refugio Domestic Violence Shelter.  She was inducted into the New Mexico Women’s Hall of Fame by Governor Gary Johnson in 1999 for her many contributions to her community.