Jim Harrison (December 11, 1937 – March 26, 2016)
I was introduced to the poetry of Jim Harrison in the 1980s, likely by Ted Dyck who also introduced me to the poetry of Ed Dorn. Here’s one of Harrison’s early poems in 1961. “Kinship.”
Harrison published 18 books of poetry throughout his life, and that somewhere there was a Mennonite in his family. In my head he will always be the 30th Mennonite Poet. There just isn’t enough room in an anthology, or in my brain for everything. You may know him better for his fiction, especially by his money maker Legends of Fall.
I do hope to get better at voicing poems, but in the meantime I will get by, hopefully listeners as well. Look him up at the Poetry Foundation, Lit Hub, or Wiki for more. More was always more according to the stories about Harrison’s appetites. Here is one of his last poems “Where is Jim Harrison?”