Aerie

Debut poems by outdoorsman, observer, wordsmith, Dan Butterfass. "I'm walking the path of the memory of a stream," writes Dan Butterfass in one of his wonderful poems. But his writing life has not marooned him in the nether lands of memory. It has in fact made more present the singular facts of life, and their stories, thoughtful and radiant. In these poems Butterfass is at once a thinker who can march a passage of Shakespeare through his head, and a visionary experiencing with us the odor and ooze of a duck marsh.

For decades Butterfass has paid high attention to his life passages, and in these poems, he brings those sometimes joyous, sometimes difficult passages alive for us, making ours come alive, too, because of his poetry.

Emilio DeGrazia, author most recently of "What Trees Know," Nodin Press.