cover image A Nude Singularity: Lily Peter of Arkansas: A Biography

A Nude Singularity: Lily Peter of Arkansas: A Biography

Annielaura M. Jaggers. Uca Press, $35.95 (407pp) ISBN 978-0-944436-13-4

Jaggers chronicles the life of poet and millionaire Arkansas plantation owner Lily Peter (1891-1991) in a detailed scholarly study. Although she was born into a poor family in the Big Cypress Arkansas bayou, Peter acquired a university education and earned her living teaching school until the 1940s, when she began helping her brother manage his cotton plantation; she went on to build it into a million-dollar farming empire after his death. A conservationist, Peter refused to use pesticides and played a leading role in Arkansas environmental struggles. She also published several books of poetry, including The Green Linen of Summer (1964) and The Great Riding (1966), and in 1971 she was named Arkansas's poet laureate. Unfortunately, Jaggers's great admiration for Peter (who cooperated with her biographer), together with her stilted writing style, results in flat and subjective prose that does not do justice to a talented and dynamic woman. Jaggers is a professor at Arkansas Tech University. Photos not seen by PW. (Jan.)