The Acreage: An Anthem

A collection of poetry reminiscences about life on a bucolic stretch of farmland.

At the outset of Flaugher’s work of prose poetry—termed an “anthem” here—the unnamed protagonist is a young woman who arrives, by virtue of marriage, on a small farm. Totally unaccustomed to the rural lifestyle, she is at first taken aback by the amount of manual labor that she and her husband must undertake to make their new home livable. The duties range from small tasks to the “six inches of manure” that must be cleared from the chicken house, a chore that yields the discovery of a desiccated feline, “frozen forever in a hideous posture of agony or madness. Who can say of what the cat perished, poison, perhaps.” Such experiences with small animals form mostly the entire work. Flaugher’s early chapters center on the eventual menagerie of barn cats with which the protagonist and her husband control the rodent population, with their most notable feline being the aptly named Goliath, a big-headed bruiser who runs the roost on the farm. The couple endure the time-worn difficulties of pet ownership, each bygone friend buried tenderly by the strawberry patch he liked to snack on or the tree beneath which he loved to nap. The cycle of death and rebirth as played out among the farm animals becomes the defining experience of both spouses’ lives and readers’ while consuming the work. In such moments as when the couple’s dog Beau pees on a pal’s leg, readers will understand why the duo goes on to choose the canine and cut the friend out altogether. While the rhythms and realities of Flaugher’s account of farm life eventually become predictable—most of these chapters feel interchangeable—the author displays a deft knack for poetic, lyrical prose that will keep readers going with its brand of deceptive simplicity. No massive revelations are forthcoming from this book, but readers in search of an honest rendering of American pastoral life will be grateful to have spent their time on the farm.

A heartfelt rumination on the touching, often heartrending relationships between farm owners and their pets.