Unlike most books of poems nowadays, Goodbye, Ice by Lawrence Millman has a strong ecological bias. The book offers a window on the natural world of the Arctic and its tradition-bound indigenous people. Climate change, inevitably, raises its ugly head in many of the poems, but the book itself is a lament not just for the loss of ice, but for the loss of the Arctic itself.
Tabella dei contenuti
- Author’s Note
- At the top of a cliff
- Eider Duck
- ‘Hey, look! A land bridge! …
- Aurora Borealis
- There it rests …
- Raven
- Seated in his canoe …
- Mosquitoes
- A platter of seal liver and walrus fat …
- Goodbye, ice …
- Lichen
- In the bright Arctic twilight …
- Kayaker’s Song
- Tupilaq Sonnet
- Snowy Owl
- Glacial Erratic
- ‘Give me the moon …
- The concert begins …
- This is a poem …
- On this uplifted island …
- Lullaby
- CLICK! …
- Sandhill Cranes
- The bedridden Gwich’n elder …
- When our boat turns a bend …
- Never in the history of my eyes …
- Kelly Fraser, 1993-2019
- All praise the mighty Leccinum …
- Jan Mayen Drift Logs
- Icelandic Quatrains
- There was a young girl named Isserfik …
- High above the shoreline …
- The Last Shaman
- The Fall
- The Methane Family
- They’ve been grinning …
- Rust-ridden 55-gallon drums …
- I hear her now …
- Rising and descending …
- Civilization
- I notice an all-white caribou …
- On the rough shingle …
- In my mind’s grey asylum …
- Hunter’s Song
- There I was, bent over …
- What rests on the rock-ribbed short …
- Charm Against Disease
- The wind huffs and puffs …
- There was once an Inuk …
- Night Music
- A sled dog tethered to a post …
- As I paddled …
- Time-hardened arctic char …
- Charm Against an Avalanche
- Invasive Species
- There was once a family of skeletons …
- Berry Hunting Song
- Up they rise …
- Inuit Elder
- A sudden exaltation of wind …
- Walking the tundra …
- Marriage
- A man dreamed of a good salmon fishing place …
- Ice Man
- Squatting among tussocks of sedge grass …
- Epitaph
Circa l’autore
Writer-ethnographer-mycologist Lawrence Millman has made over 40 trips and expeditions to the Arctic and Subarctic. His 18 books include such titles as Last Places, Northern Latitudes, A Kayak Full of Ghosts, Our Like Will Not Be There Again, Hiking to Siberia, Lost in the Arctic, At the End of the World, The Book of Origins, and Fungipedia. He has written for Smithsonian, National Geographic, Outside, Atlantic Monthly, and The Sunday Times (London). He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The author is available for interviews and events, virtual and in person, as social distancing rules allow.