Product Description

Braided Creek contains more than 300 poems exchanged in this longstanding correspondence. Wise, wry, and penetrating, the poems touch upon numerous subjects, from the natural world to the nature of time. Harrison and Kooser decided to remain silent over who wrote which poem, allowing their voices, ideas, and images to swirl and merge into this remarkable suite of lyrics.

Each time I go outside the world
is different. This has happened
all my life.
*
The moon put her hand
over my mouth and told me
to shut up and watch.
*
A nephew rubs the sore feet
of his aunt,
and the rope that lifts us all toward grace
creaks on the pulley.
*
Under the storyteller's hat
are many heads, all troubled.

Jim Harrison, one of America's best-loved writers, is author of two dozen books of poetry, fiction, essays, food criticism, and memoir. He is best known for a collection of novellas, Legends of the Fall, and the epic novel Dalva. He lives in western Montana and southern Arizona.

Ted Kooser is the author of eight collections of poetry and a prose memoir. His poetry appears regularly in The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, Poetry, and The Nation. He lives in Nebraska.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #177963 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 90 pages

From Booklist
Friends and fellow poets Harrison and Kooser decided to have a correspondence entirely in short poems after Kooser was diagnosed with cancer and, Harrison says, "Ted's poetry became overwhelmingly vivid." The results of that decision are gathered here, and none of the two- to five-line writings is individually signed. Telling whose poem is whose is virtually impossible, and, not to gainsay Harrison, vividness, visual or tactile, takes second place to wit and wisdom in their colloquy. Both men are famous outlander poets, Harrison more the woodsman-hunter, perhaps, and Kooser the farmer-rancher, and their common basic concerns are land and water and animals, especially dogs and birds (when one is perforce in New York, "on a wet / and bitter street / I heard a crow from home"). They sound betimes like up-to-date imagists or haiku poets, pungent rural epigrammatists out of Jonathan Williams' Blues & Roots, Rue & Bluets (1971) and Wendell Berry's Sayings & Doings (1975), or just two crusty old codgers. Their conversation always repays eavesdropping. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
Jim Harrison is the author of thirty books, including Legends of the Fall, Dalva, and Shape of the Journey. His work has been translated into two dozen languages and produced as four feature-length films. In 2007, Mr. Harrison was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He divides his time between Montana and southern Arizona.

Customer Reviews

Thank you, Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser!
Just when you begin to fear that text messaging and email have replaced real writing, that slogans and catch-phrases have replaced real thought, and that no one gives a damn about the English language any more... this wonderful book comes along to restore your faith and spirit!

Before I began to read it, it seemed odd to me that none of the poems are attributed. Once I started reading, I realized immediately that this was a wise and marvelous choice by these two. As one of them notes, "Everyone gets tired of this continuing cult of the personality... This book is an assertion in favor of poetry and against credentials."

I am enormously grateful to these two superb writers for allowing us to share a glimpse into their friendship and their thoughts. I'm giving it to everyone I know who deserves it.

No Ego, just fun and good poetry here.
This is a fun book devoid of the usual "I wrote this" egotism. Even the "about the poets" is a blend of both of these friends lives. These 85 pages of short, sometimes haiku-like, untitled poems range from the humorous ("Republicans think that all over the world/ darker-skinned people are having more fun / than they are. It's largely true".) To the short aphorism: "On every topographic map, / the fingerprints of God."

There are many explorations of aging that both of them share ("Getting older I'm much better at watching/ rain. I skip counting individual drops / in favor of the general feeling of rain."). Some of the poems of nature are reflective "The patience of the spider's web/ is not disturbed by dew." A very accessible collection.

Braided Creek, A Conversation in Poetry
There are not enough stars to truly rate this book. A year in the lives of two poets, correspondence in the form of short poems. That the individual poems are not attributed creates a deep sense of delight and concern. "At my age, even in airports, why would you wish, time to move faster." The next poem: "The clock stopped at 5:30 for three months. Now it's always time to quit work, have a drink, cook dinner." And after you read this book, find other books by Ted Kooser and Jim Harrison. The rich offerings in "Braided Creek" allow us to see and feel and taste life at its most basic. I loved this book. Will read it many times.