“A deft naturalist with a keen eye for details of nature, human and nonhuman. . . . Bradfield’s poems delight.”—San Francisco Chronicle
This collection portrays the gripping history of polar exploration by channeling its most notable figures—Symmes, Mawson, Scott, Cherry-Garrard, Byrd, and Shackleton among them. From their perspectives and her own, Elizabeth Bradfield relays the wonders and dangers, physical and mental, encountered while endeavoring to reach the earth’s least-hospitable regions.
Elizabeth Bradfield is the author of "Approaching Ice" (Persea, 2010), which was a finalist for the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, and "Interpretive Work" (Arktoi Books, 2008), which won the 2009 Audre Lorde Prize and was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. Her work has appeared in "The Atlantic Monthly," "Poetry," "The Believer," "Orion," and other journals and anthologies.
In 2005, Bradfield founded the grassroots-distributed and guerilla-art-inspired Broadsided Press (www.broadsidedpress.org), which still runs. She's a fan of collaboration, street art, and poetry in unexpected places. Interested? Become a Vector -- Broadsided relies on people (Vectors) to print and post the free monthly collaborations in their towns.
Bradfield grew up in Tacoma, Washington, and has worked on boats in Southeast Alaska, Baja, the Gulf of Maine, and the Canadian Arctic. A former Stegner Fellow, she works as a naturalist and lives on Cape Cod.
