Earlier this week, my poem “Then I Packed You Up the Ridge Like a Brother on My Back,” from Notes from the Journey Westward, was featured at Poetry Daily.
Tag: Joe Wilkins
Talking Writing and Nature with Pam Houston
As part of Scott Temple’s Wyld-Er-Ness documentary series, Pam Houston and I sat down on a snowy spring day in Boston and talked writing and nature. You can find the newly released video at Orion Magazine’s blog.
Review of Notes from the Journey Westward
A big thanks to Mark Allen Jenkins and Stirring for this insightful, kind review of Notes from the Journey Westward!
“Notes from the Bulls” in Orion
Though it isn’t available online, my story “Notes from the Bulls: the Unedited Journals of Verl Newman” is in the latest issue of Orion. Lots of wonderful work in this issue, including essays by Barry Lopez and Ander Monson, poetry by Todd Davis, and a series of stunning paintings by James Lavadour that accompany my story. Truly, there’s just no excuse not to be subscribed to Orion!
Lovely Review of The Mountain and the Fathers
Feeling really grateful for Chris Bowman’s insightful, lovely review of The Mountain and the Fathers on his blog at Capital Public Radio. A couple of quotes from the review:
More than a memoir, the book is an indictment of the ideology of rugged individualism so deeply rooted in the arid American West. …This book brings to mind novelist Wallace Stegner’s stories of those like his father who fell victim to the rain-follows-the-plow myth. …The Mountains and the Fathers is another poignant lesson in reconciling ourselves with our natural environment. …“We need to remember how it really was and is out West, and we need to tell those true new stories,” Wilkins writes. The Mountains and the Fathers is one of “true new stories,” well told.
Notes from the Journey Westward a High Plains Book Award finalist
Very pleased to see that my second collection of poems, Notes from the Journey Westward, has just been named a finalist for the 2013 High Plains Book Award. Lots of big names up for the High Plains Awards this year, including Richard Ford, Louise Erdrich, David Abrams, Alan Kesselheim, and Emily Danforth.
The Mountain and the Fathers Featured on the Daily Dose
Pleased to see that The Mountain and the Fathers is featured today on Powell’s Bookstore’s Daily Dose, a newsletter featuring recent reader comments. Thanks, Stuart in Fort Collins, for the kind, perceptive comments about The Mountain and the Fathers:
This is a tremendously powerful narrative of growing up in a harsh and unforgiving climate with a way and manner of life that few probably understand exists in the modern US today. Having lost his father at a young age, the author explores where he found example, guidance and protection as well as where he failed to find those components in the community that exists uniquely in Big Dry and Hi-line of Montana. Wilkins is very successful in conveying how the landscape and community reduce most elements of life to essentials and ways of escape. The story of what the author had to do to keep the coal burning furnace running and how that was just a fact of life no different that eating or sleeping had a strong effect on the perspective that readers can glean from the comparison to the truly few serious trials that most of us face on a daily basis.
A great read and one that has a great deal of staying power. I’ve known a fair number of people who grew up in that area of Montana and Wilkins story rings very true. The Mountain and the Fathers can provide a valuable relief against which to gauge the “inconveniences” of life as well as the effect of recognizing where a father-less boy finds the attributes in men that he will absorb and live up to as well as those he can reject and how to compare himself to the stories and perception of dead father who in some ways has been mythologized.
Radio Interview with The Write Question
Had the good fortune of speaking with Cherie Newman of Montana Public Radio’s The Write Question about memoir, poetry, and the power of stories a few weeks back. You can listen in to our conversation this week on MTPR or online.
Featured Poet at Dialogist
Pleased to have five poems (with audio) up in this quarter’s issue of Dialogist, a sharp, new online literary magazine featuring poetry and visual art.
The paperback has landed!
Copies will be available in bookstores and online in just under a month–just in time for Father’s Day!
joewilkins.org 