Description
Literary Nonfiction. Nature Writing. In these twenty-six short essays, Merrill Gilfillan records his encounters with Wood Warblers as they flit through North American landscapes on their migratory paths. With precision, appetite, and a touch of whimsy, he sketches the tiny birds in their surroundings, perfecting the art of what he elsewhere calls "alfresco writing." Throughout, THE WARBLER ROAD testifies to birding as a meditative, even votive dedication and a fundamental mode of attention to the world: "When I walk out with binoculars in May and September, it is often the fly fisherman in Yeats's poem I have in mind as I move along the path. We are both out to discover and authenticate the morning, to break the glaze of habitude and mark, for an hour or so, the weave and fine points of the season and its day-in-place." As Peter Matthiessen writes, "A bird book for poets, precisely and evocatively observed, beautifully written. Would that such a eulogy existed for every family of birds."
Author Bio
Merrill Gilfillan was born in Mount Gilead, Ohio, in 1945 and studied literature at the Universities of Michigan and Iowa. His first book of poems appeared in 1970. OLD RIVER, NEW RIVER: A MISCELLANY (Red Dragonfly Press, 2019) is his latest book. Recent publications from Flood Editions include RED MAVIS, UNDANCEABLE, SELECTED POEMS 1965-2000, THE BARK OF THE DOG, Harpsichord Hills (Horse Less Press), and TALK ACROSS WATER: STORIES SELECTED AND NEW, as well as a collection of alfresco essays, THE WARBLER ROAD. A collection of his SELECTED AND NEW STORIES will appear in 2019 from Flood Editions. A sheaf of landscape drawings called Distant Rivers appeared in 2012. He lives in Colorado.
Author City: DENVER, CO USA