Description
Poetry. The red mavis, better known as the brown thrasher, sings a tireless improvised song, "varied ... usually pleasing," lambent with "the gladness of the open air." In this volume, Merrill Gilfillan draws on casual rhymes and lost commonplaces, composing his poems en plein air. He ranges from the Carolina woods to the California coastline, and from "salted haikus" to prose meditations. Everywhere, his writing is marked by deftness, exuberance, and appetite: "Always hungry-Toujours / la faim as it reads on / the family crest."
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