UPRIVER, BEYOND THE BEND with AT ABBY CREEK

About the Book

UPRIVER is a collection of poetry that defies orthodoxy.  Drawn from the author's experiences in Alaska, Oregon and Idaho, these poems echo his life in a voice of long rural residency.  They truly come from the upper stretches of the river of life, those runs and drifts beyond the reach of travel writers.

The first 24 stanzas of ABBY CREEK's 110 stanzas were published in American Nature Writing 1998 (Sierra Club Books), edited by John A. Murray.  This is the first time the complete text of the poem has been available.

About the Author

Born in Indiana in 1946, Homer Kizer graduated from a small, Oregon coast high school, and entered Willamette University at sixteen. He was declared an emancipated minor during that school year. He transferred the following year to Oregon Tech where he entered the Gunsmithing program in 1964; he opened a gunshop near Siletz, Oregon, in 1967, relocated to Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula in 1974, and began writing fulltime in 1979. Kizer has a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from University of Alaska Fairbanks, with post graduate work in English and Art at Idaho State University.