In her loving Foreword to this expanded anniversary edition, Naomi Shihab Nye writes “Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry is one of the dearest, most appealing books ever published. These poems are tiny delicious American haiku affectionately exchanged between two friends… This slim volume acts as a palate-cleanser, a spirit-booster, a little rocket-ship of wonders.”
While Ted Kooser and Jim Harrison were an unlikely pair to become friends, they shared an intimate correspondence of handwritten letters that often included new poems. After Kooser was diagnosed with cancer, Harrison sensed his friend’s poetry becoming “overwhelmingly vivid, ” and their friendship deepened through the exchange of brief poems that captured “the essence of what [they] wanted to say to each other.” After hundreds of poems were sent back and forth through the mail, they found this volume hidden within the stacks of envelopes and postcards.
In her loving Foreword to this expanded anniversary edition, Naomi Shihab Nye writes “Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry is one of the dearest, most appealing books ever published. These poems are tiny delicious American haiku affectionately exchanged between two friends… This slim volume acts as a palate-cleanser, a spirit-booster, a little rocket-ship of wonders.”
Wise, wry, and penetrating, these epigrammatic, aphoristic poems explore love and friendship, pausing to celebrate the natural world, aging, everyday things and scenes, and poetry itself. This expanded edition includes a dozen new poems, and when asked why none of the poems have attributions, one of the co-authors replied, “This book is an assertion in favor of poetry and against credentials.”
About the author
Jim Harrison (1937–2016) was the author of over three dozen books, including Legends of the Fall and Dalva, and served as the food columnist for the magazines Brick and Esquire. He published fourteen volumes of poetry, the final being Dead Man’s Float (2016). His work has been translated into two dozen languages and produced as four feature-length films. As a young poet he co-edited Sumac magazine with fellow poet Dan Gerber, and earned fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. In 2007, he was elected into the Academy of American Arts and Letters.
Thirteenth United States Poet Laureate (2004–2006) Ted Kooser is a visiting professor at the University of Nebraska, where he teaches poetry and nonfiction writing. His collection Delights & Shadows was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 2005. His memoir, Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps, a Barnes & Noble Discover finalist, also won the 2002 Friends of American Writers Award and Fore Word Magazine’s gold medal recognition for autobiographical writing. He is the author of eight full-length collections of poetry, nine chapbooks and special editions. He lives with his wife Kathleen in Nebraska.
Naomi Shihab Nye is a poet, children’s book author, essayist, and translator. Born to a Palestinian father and an American mother, Nye grew up in St. Louis, Jerusalem, and San Antonio. She earned her BA from Trinity University in San Antonio and is the author and/or editor of more than thirty volumes. Nye is the recipient of numerous honors including the Ivan Sandrof Award for Lifetime Achievement from the National Book Critics Circle and fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, and Witter Bynner Foundation. She has spent more than 40 years traveling the world to lead writing workshops and is the Poetry Foundation’s Young People’s Poet Laureate. She currently resides in San Antonio, Texas.
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