Autumn in the Alaska Range

by Sexton, Tom

• ISBN13: 9781903392027
• ISBN10: 1903392020
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-11-01
• Publisher: Salmon Poetry

Summary

These are poems of the natural world, of light and dark and the changing of the seasons. We find Tu Fu chanting a poem deep in the Alaska Range, a man who becomes a bear during his morning walk, a world of light carved from a piece of ivory, and walruses in their home beneath the ocean deciding if they will offer themselves to a hunter. Not all of the poems are set in Alaska. There are poems about growing up in a decaying mill town, the suicide of the poet's mother and how the past is always with us. However, Sexton returns again and again to the conviction that the world itself is sacred -- an ancient belief we need to recover.

Table of Contents

On the Death of a Homeless Man	p. 3
The Wildlife Sanctuary at Creamer's Field	p. 4
Rowing Toward the Spirit World	p. 5
For Art and Anna on Their Wedding Day	p. 6
Spirit Houses at Tazlina	p. 7
King Island	p. 8
The Alaska Range	p. 9
The Cross Fox	p. 10
A Blessing	p. 12
Leaving for a Year	p. 17
Crossing the Divide	p. 18
Rowan-tree	p. 19
Seal Harbour	p. 20
Summer Cottage	p. 21
Eastport	p. 22
Trolls	p. 23
The Proper Balance	p. 24
The Flight	p. 25
Crows	p. 26
Neighbour	p. 27
Cardinals	p. 28
Winn's Russet	p. 29
Islesboro	p. 30
Portage la Prairie	p. 31
Poem Begun on Mother's Day	p. 32
Thinking of Tu Fu on a Summer Evening	p. 37
Landscape	p. 38
Lament	p. 39
Lin He-Jing	p. 40
At Feng-Hsiang	p. 41
A Letter to Tu Fu	p. 42
Memoir	p. 43
Grandmother Farrell	p. 44
Homage to Neidecker	p. 46
Tough-Me-Not	p. 47
Trumpeter Swans	p. 51
Solstice	p. 52
In Glacial Light	p. 53
The Bear that Visits our Cabin	p. 54
Caribou	p. 55
Willow Ptarmigan	p. 56
Naming	p. 57
Beluga	p. 58
Lynx	p. 59
Transformation	p. 60
Blue Flag	p. 61
Wilson's Warblers	p. 65
The Mountains in Winter	p. 66
Towns	p. 67
Winter Solstice	p. 68
The Gift of Snow	p. 69
Winter Finch	p. 70
Skimming the Ice	p. 71
Pleiades	p. 72
Denali	p. 73
Poem about the Moon	p. 74
Rising from the Dark	p. 75
April	p. 76
Marsh Violets	p. 77
Stages of the Heart	p. 81
Poem Written near Hurricane	p. 82
Autumn in the Alaska Range	p. 83
Burnet	p. 84
Winter	p. 85
Numen	p. 86
Melting Snow	p. 87
Paradise Valley	p. 88
Setosa	p. 89
Epitaph	p. 90
For the Sake of the Light	p. 91
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