Saving Daylight

April 3, 2006
Mountains and forests from the American West, oneiric apparitions and a hard-won, slightly bitter wisdom pervade this 10th book of poems from the prolific Harrison (Shape of the Journey
), whose many prose works include Legends of the Fall
. Harrison's passionate, sometimes uncontrolled poems portray his upbringing in northern Michigan and his long residence in the wilds of Montana, where "The moose/ down the road wears the black cloak of a god," and any small "community can drown in itself,/ then come to life again." His tough-guy tone and terse descriptions, along with his unpretentious free-verse line, might recall Gerald Stern or even Richard Hugo. Yet his leaps from topic to topic, his declamations and spontaneous, mystical utterances, suggest instead a Latin American influence—several poems appear both in English and in Spanish in facing-page translations, and several more pay tribute to the wild intuitions of Pablo Neruda.

February 15, 2006
The poems in Harrison -s ("Legends of the Fall") tenth collection shift between rant and meditation as they blend philosophy with down-home observations about life, love, nature, and God. (Think Dylan Thomas, as written by Walt Whitman.) -I -ve been translating the language with which creatures address God, - Harrison muses. Describing dreamlike states of consciousness -at times literally coming out of anesthesia or awakening from a night -s sleep -the poems feel like self-induced hypnosis. Surrealistic images abound, with some of the longer poems getting lost in their own excesses. -Incomprehension, - for example, comes from the -write anything and hope a poem appears - school. The best poems, like those written as letters, allow surreal images to gain momentum as, after a noisy rush of language, they arrive at a Zen-like quiet. Using conceits and other extended metaphors, these poems follow a thought as it feels its way, sticky hands and all, to an illogical conclusion that makes a kind of droll sense. Recommended for all libraries. [Harrison is perhaps best known as a fiction writer; four of his novels have been adapted into feature-length films. -Ed.] " -Diane Scharper, Towson Univ., MD"

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2006
Harrison's poetry is earthy in the fullest sense of the word: it is of the earth, stoked by the senses, in sync with the beat of life, and salty in its forthrightness. Harrison gleans lessons from rivers, the moon, birds, and dogs, and puzzles over the elusive nature of time, tagging clocks as "the machinery of dread." He writes sharply of war, the "loathsome" government, the distortions of religion, and humankind's "will toward greed and self-destruction." A veteran fiction writer, Hollywood darling, hard-living and deep-thinking poet, Harrison brings tough love to the puzzles of existence and a meditative perspective to life's mysteries as he evokes the wilds of Montana and cherished small towns. He remembers the dead, savors life's bittersweetness, its push and pull, its "swish and swash," and knows in his very cells that "salvation isn't coming. It's always been here." Harrison may be under doctor's orders to count his drinks and measure the sugar in his blood, but this is his most robust, sure-footed, and spirit-raising poetry collection to date.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)