Wolves and wildflowers is an ignition switch to a new renaissance or movement as we see happening in America now . A prayer to America and the wild west. Dante, Whitman, we see further than you but only because we stand upon your shoulders.
I don't feel as if I wrote this book. I channeled it, divined it. . It is beyond intellectualism, beyond me. The "I" in the piece titled '' Beyond" is the narrator of the book. "Beyond" the intellect, that is, the anti-intellectualism of Ayn Rand, for example.
This book is not a book, it is a prayer you must let into your bloodstream like "The Golden Bough" to fully understand or benefit from.
I want these poems to rush into your bloodstream like a drug. Allow yourself to transend to another place or realm.
This is a non-fictiion poetry. Volumes of studies about wolves, plant life, congregational biblical studies, classic literature, such as Blake, Whitman, Elliot, Dante, Kerouac, the volumes of Cambells' mythology series, along with studies rehabilitation, spiritual rejuvenation, were all braided together for this project.
It is a delightful romp, like a moving selection of theatre pieces through the wild west.
This book is primal, yet sophisticated. The roses not the war. A step forward. Kerouac ( who described himself as a poet not a novelist ) but NOW.
A background in fact . After reading all 6 prominent known studies of wolves; "in the wild", "never cry wolf ", "the company of wolves" " captive wild ", "urban wild ", etc., I was amazed by the reasearchers findings that jealousy, incest, sexual deviation, murder, do not occur in the wild. Only in captivity and encroachment do these traits occur, in our human terms. The encroachment of our basic wild natures are what produce these types of problems. ( Yes incest occurs but only when a species is down to its last few in order to regenerate. And there is a lot of difference between killing and murder, for example.)
"go with the wild tigers, go with them and they will not harm you" I know a man who can sit down next to a pride of wild lions and they won't bother him at all. ( as long as they've eaten). " do not try to capture, or they will harm you". Any wild animal trainer knows never to make the mistake of humanizing an animal. But what we are really talking about here is our wild hearts. Definition of wild; of free will, vindictive, without being controlled, ( Miriam Webster).
The first thing that struck me in the studies of wolves was an opening passage " what startles people most when they come across a pack of wild wolves is the incredible sweetness in their faces. "
This work is accessable yet deep. For example, in the opening piece"Power of Word" language is not just communication, it is also a covenant. We all agree to "stop", more importantly we all agree as to what "stop" means. Too any writers cop out with "it means whatever you want it to mean". I believe
this has damaged the value of todays' modern literature. With wolves and wildflowers the pieces ( other than the connector pieces ) have substance and pay off informatively and artistically . Yet nothing is finite or closed in a poetic work
The iambic pentameter, musicality, word selection, pace, color, dialect, are all of modern American vernacular.
Wildflowers need no one to fertilize, water, or tend to them, they just grow all on their own in the wild.
Blessed are they who do what they do without praise or money, simply because of what they are made of, for they have heard the wildflower song .