Dead Man's Float

"His poems succeed on the basis of an open heart and a still-ravenous appetite for life."Texas Observer "Harrison doesn't write like anyone else, relying entirely on the toughness of his vision and intensity of feeling."Publishers Weekly "Harrison's essential honesty is deeply affecting."Library Journal The title Dead Man's Float is inspired by a technique used by swimmers to conserve energy when exhausted, to rest up for the long swim to shore. In his fourteenth volume of poetry, Jim Harrison presents keen awareness of physical pains, delights in the natural world, and reflects on humanity's tentative place in a universe filled with ninety billion galaxies. By turns mournful and celebratory, these fearless and exuberant poems accomplish what Harrison's poems always do: wake us up to the possibilities of being fully alive. Warbler This year we have two gorgeous yellow warblers nesting in the honeysuckle bush. The other day I stuck my head in the bush. The nestlings weigh one twentieth of an ounce, about the size of a honeybee. We stared at each other, startled by our existence. In a month or so, when they reach the size of bumblebees they'll fly to Costa Rica without a map. Jim Harrison, one of America's most versatile and celebrated writers, is the author of over thirty books of poetry, fiction, and nonfictionincludingLegends of the Fall, the acclaimed trilogy of novellas. With a fondness for open space and anonymous thickets, he divides his time between Montana and southern Arizona.