Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
The poems in Climbing the Divide celebrate with praise and amazement the wonders and risks of wilderness and family, of friends before and after the war. The boy in these poems grows up during World War II, feisty in spite of losses and the harsh, hardscrabble land where he lives. Surrounded by heroes, he learns ranching and faith from parents, extended family, and neighbors.
In pilot training and war and back home with friends and memories of friends missing in action, he finds delight with his wife, who makes "magical hammocks at bedtime" for their children. Despite heartache and rage, they discover more hope and joy than they thought possible while growing older—jogging at 65 in winter, hiking grizzly country with bells, and "climbing the divide," knowing they're nearer each day to "the dark, hollow halo of space."
“I spent one whole amazing fall morning engrossed in this book. What impresses me most is the love and music and startling intelligence with which, for all of us, Walt McDonald charts the territory beyond mid-life.” —Jeanne Murray Walker
Walt McDonald is the author of nineteen collections of poetry and one book of fiction. More than 2,200 of his poems have been published in journals and magazines, including The American Scholar, The Atlantic Monthly, Boston Review, First Things, New York Review of Books, JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), London Review of Books, The Nation, The New Criterion, Poetry, and The Sewanee Review. McDonald served as Texas Poet Laureate in 2001, and as poetry editor for Texas Tech University Press from 1975-1995. He retired in May 2002 as Paul Whitfield Horn Professor of English and Poet in Residence at Texas Tech University.