His “Albany cycle,” seven novels including “Ironweed,” for which he won the 1984 Pulitzer, are set there.
Ironweed of royal purple, maroon-shot, mingles in illogical harmony with the blue vervain and magenta trumpet-weeds.
He sank deeper amid the ironweed, forgot his errand, and began to dream.
The ironweed was in bloom, and sitting on its purple top the dryfly sang the song of midsummer.
As for the ironweed, it clothes the pastures with a royal purple, so rich a hue it compels the eye, and is a kind of stimulant.
Only one weed seems to hold its own against it, and that is ironweed, a plant like a robust purple aster five or six feet high.
