Book Review: Cracker Yarns Florida Folklore by Linda Lee
Robert Smith 
Linda Lee sure does know how to write poetry. This collection is excellent and should get a mass market publishing....with a few changes.... Lee really captures the Florida Cracker mindset in her writings. Also the poetic vision of the Florida Cracker home, which she writes mostly about. Her many entries of cemeteries are excellent and weaves love, pathos and mystical quality to each poem.
She also well captures the Confederate soldier at war or just after or in the hereafter. I have little doubt if my great grand uncle, Orton Lowe, was still around down in Coral Gables he'd march Lee to the big publishers and promote her work as he did Edward Lear and Ogden Nash and so many, many others.
That would place Lee in front of some publishers who would edit her collections in a far better manner. That gets to the downside of the collection... Down side is the right word, too. These are not happy poems.
Don't pick this up and start reading if you're going through bad times. There's almost nothing included to lift spirits. A bulk majority of the poems are with a theme of the dead. More of a mourning tone throughout the book.
That's almost 200 pages of some pretty sad stuff. I would hope she might vary other collections to take on a more hopeful and cheery tone. There is so much to celebrate about our great state and its history. Though, Frank (& Ann & Lisa) Thomas writings were to be sung, those words also almost always were swelled with pride and cheer. Bottom line: I recommend this book. 7 out of ten points.
