The Story of Goldenrod A prose poem saga
The HERIMA series
The Story of Goldenrod is the second volume in Jeanne Clark's HERIMA series, which also includes The Story of Ellacoya and Thomas Clark's Journal. Herima, the storytelling old woman's name, is an invention linking the feminine her with the masculine [h]im and ending with a.
While her Story of Goldenrod arose from a kernel of inspiration from the shadowy legend of Ellacoya, Kona, Ahanton, it is not an anthropological or historically accurate treatise. Few customs and no characters are real. What is real and what permeates the verses of this story is her respect for the land, for the enduring spirits of the Northeastern Woodlands Abenaki and their descendants.
In this prose poem saga, a young girl flees an abusive stepmother to live with a Native American group where she is adopted into the family of Ellacoya and learns their language, customs, and values. Later, during the confrontations that arise in the early days of the New Hampshire colony between the growing number of settlers and indigenous peoples, she plays a pivotal role in providing a safe haven where both cultures can blend and develop mutual respect.
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$21.95 / paperback / 331 pages / 6" x 9" /
Beech River Books / 2025 / ISBN 978-0-839367-1-8
Jeanne Clark (1931-2023) is the recipient of the 2009 New Hampshire Senior Poets Laureate Award from Amy Kitchener's Angels Without Wings Foundation. Despite her acclaim as a writer, she says she would rather have been born as a sixteenth-century Abenaki or as a black bear.
