Poetry. From John Greenleaf Whittier and James Russell Lowell to Robert Frost and Wendell Berry, every generation or two it seems a poet has to redefine our shifting relationship to the land. "Over the river and through the woods," Americans retain their comfortable myths about farming, and their agrarian roots, though for better or worse most are now several generations removed from the rural life. Paul Hunter reaches back to 19th century practices and values, and by the end leaps ahead to the agribusiness and suburban sprawl of the 21st century. We are all in there somewhere, in how we value versatility and hearken to the mystery of growth, how we both shun and are drawn to the backbreaking labor and long contemplative silences of working on the land--how we stand apart, tilling our thoughts.

Author City: Seattle, WA USA

Paul Hunter has been poet, teacher, performer, playwright, musician, instrument-maker, artist, editor, publisher, grassroots arts activist, worker on the land, and shade-tree mechanic. For the past twelve years he has produced fine letterpress books under the imprint of Wood Works—currently including 23 books and 50 broadsides. His poems have appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Bloomsbury Review, Iowa Review, North American Review, Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Raven Chronicles and The Southern Review, as well as in three full-length books and several chapbooks. Recipient of the 1998 Pym Cup, the 1999 Nelson Bentley Award, and the 2005 Washington Book Award, he lives and works in Seattle.