[The] heroic celebration of the conquest and settlement of the Trans-Mississippi West has remained a viable theme, ripe for the attention of America's would-be epicists. Such a narrative poem, when and if it were successfully composed, and then widely accepted by an American audience, might be called an "Astoriad." As Astoriad, it would be a verse sequel to Washington Irving's Astoria …, a history of John Jacob Astor's opening up of the West to the fur trade, his establishment of a trading post at Astoria on the Columbia river, and his triumphs as a capitalist. (pp. 53-4)

Of the perhaps two dozen poets who have attempts Astoriads, John G. Neihardt, poet laureate of Nebraska, once praised by William Rose Benét for his "vast panorama of the West," makes the first claim to attention. Not only is he epicist but he is also regionalist. If regionalism may be thought...