Tonopah
Two Poems
Red Shuttleworth
Published by Bunchgrass Press in a limited (44 copies) edition, Red Shuttleworth's Tonopah presents two poems (the title poem and Miles From) scraped, salvaged from a decades-old failed, unproduced, shredded one-act free verse play, Tom Mix Reconsidered.
Marginal to the play, Old West lawmanWyatt Earp is prominent in Tonopah. After leaving Tombstone, Earp and his wife, Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp, went to Alaska, then wheeled south into Nevada... to Tonopah in 1902... where Earp opened a saloon, The Northern. The Northern failed and Earp turned to gold and copper mining in the Mojave Desert... near Vidal, California. Earp liked Tonopah, the gambling scene, and returned from time to time, lodging from 1910-onward at the new Mizpah Hotel.
Wyatt Earp's "The Northern" in Tonopah, 1902-1903.
Wyatt Earp with "Earpie," Vidal, California, about 1910-1920.
Red Shuttleworth's Woe to the Land Shadowing (Blue Horse Press) received the 2016 Western Heritage (Wrangler) Award (National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum) for Outstanding Poetry Book.
Shuttleworth is a three-time winner of the (Western Writers of America) Spur Award for Poetry. In 2007, True West magazine named Shuttleworth "Best Living Western Poet."
Red Shuttleworth