Customer Reviews

In Search of Small Gods

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When you read this brilliant book, don't ignore the acknowledgements section. (Yes, I even read the copyright page...) What you'll discover is that poems from this book have been published in a dizzying range of publications, including the canonical "Poetry," the radical "Earth First! Journal," Garrison Keillor's folksy "Writer's Almanac," and the needs-no-introduction "Playboy." These publications suggest many of Harrison's themes: art, nature, the joys of physical bodies rubbing against each other (or not!), not to mention the intention of the title: the active search for small gods. For Harrison, the small gods--and the evidence of the gods--are animals, plants, birds, a remote spring in the woods, the charge one feels walking into a secret canyon. One particularly beautiful poem is "I Believe," which begins "I believe in steep drop-offs..." and goes on to enumerate the many things that the poet believes, including leaky wooden boats, brush piles, and "the fluttering of unknown gods that I nearly see / from the left corner of my blind eye." The book itself is organized into three sections, the center section being a collection of densely imaginative prose poems. I've read all of Harrison's thirty-some books (fiction, poetry, essays, memoir), and it's the poetry I return to again and again. "In Search of Small Gods" has earned a permanent place in my library.

In my opinion Harrison's prose has always been poetry so it seems natural he should write beautiful touching poetry. I believe he has said before that poetry should not be truly understood; this book touches my soul and my heart and remains enigmatic. I live in Montana and am drawn to the land here as I am his poetry.

For me, this is a book that needs more than one reading, it is a book that sits on the night stand offering itself frequently, it is a book that shades itself with the reader's mood, it is a book that is easy to reject yet begs of acceptance, it is a book for easy reading until a meter is inflicted, it is a book with ripples on the surface running deep. I would recommend.

Jim Harrison is one of our most versatile writers and this book of poems is no exception. His prose poems range from the hysterically funny -- like his impersonating a famous physiologist to gain access to the world's fastest female runner -- to the stream-of-consciousness style of "Advice." Those small gods of daily life are exposed again and again in this book. Harrison has done the searching for us.