Jim Harrison and the art of a complicated life.

I was just speaking with a friend and we agreed that no author can write about the north like Jim Harrison. I think that this point could be furthered. No author can write about the world of love, bears, trees, bars, pseudo-Indians, the Upper Peninsula, heartbreak, foolishness, crime, Montana, fat dogs, Arizona, women, men, Nebraska, and the list goes on and on. No one can write like Harrison about the world. That period could easily be an exclamation point but I am trying to not be overly hyperbolic.

He was born in Grayling, Michigan. This is in the pines just north of my own hometown. He uses Michigan as his literary fodder. It is a special, gorgeous place full of strange people. I grew up witnessing the busted lives that he writes about. His novels, novellas, and nonfiction flow with his books of poetry in that the subjects are all interesting, soulful, and just a little messed up. The quirks of his characters keep them believable in, sometimes, far-fetched circumstances. The world of Jim Harrison is the one we live in but observed much more closely. The destructive relationships that seem normal are exposed in his writing. The depth, talent, and keening pain of the local ne'er-do-well makes the reader look around their community in a new way. The men and women love and hate with a true and admirable passion. Broken marriages still hold some fire while some "serious" love is false and mistaken. The interaction between Harrison's character's and their environment is simply perfect in its execution.

This poem is an excellent example of environment and relationship.

If you are looking for a good read this winter pick up Harrison's BROWN DOG novellas. They span the last twenty years of his career and they are magnificent.




Older Love

His wife has asthma
so he only smokes outdoors
or late at night with head
and shoulders well into
the fireplace, the mesquite and oak
heat bright against his face.
Does it replace the heat
that has wandered from love
back into the natural world?
But then the shadow passion casts
is much longer than passion,
stretching with effort from year to year.
Outside tonight hard wind and sleet
from three bald mountains,
and on the hearth before his face
the ashes we’ll all become,
soft as the back of a woman’s knee.


From SAVING DAYLIGHT By Jim Harrison Copper Canyon Press