Willa Cather was one of America's foremost novelists. Her books convey vivid pictures of the American landscape and the people molded by its harshness and its beauty. Her novels Death Comes to the Archbishop, My Antonia, and O! Pioneers are perhaps the best known of her works. Willa Cather also wrote many short stories and poems from her college years at the University of Nebraska through her years as editor of McClure's Magazine. These poems are often regarded as the less-developed work of adolescence, but they are the window into the struggles Willa Cather faced with her own identity and her inability to conform. I found her poem Spanish Johnny to fit closely into the mold of her novels, telling a picture of the Wild West.