Book Review: "A Hungry Happiness"   by Walt McLaughlin

Tiimberline Press, 2006.

Review by Martin Murie

My favorite is Arrival. Here it is:

Airborne 
the plane banks 
towards open water- 
propeller buzz echo 
to moutain silence. 
I am left standing 
with three small bags 
on a gravel airstrip 
hacked from the bush, 
feeling powerless before 
Alaskan immensity. 
Freedom’s a bone 
caught in my throat 
and the very core 
of my being 
as naked before God 
as a newborn baby 
fresh from the womb. 
Wordless dread 
in surrounding alders 
fate prepares an ambush. 
The long dream wait is over. 
Now I belong to wilderness. 

This is my favorite because it jibes so well with my first encounter with the Red Desert of
Wyoming. From my perch on the steep slopes of
Oregon Buttes the truck is a dot in the sage.
A close encounter with antelope and desert elk and
a falcon screaming along the cliff edges,
escorting me out. Wilderness has taken me.
I do not lose caution nor curiosity, but a
vague dread haunts, and gradually dwindles.

I am impressed with Walt’s honesty in his book, Arguing With The Wind, a prose account of his wilderness experience on a seacoast in Alaska. Also, in this collection of poems. I have some other favorites.

The collection is a limited edition. I strongly recommend you get in touch with
Timberline Press
6281 Red Bud
Fulton, Missori 65252
before they run out. And you will be sure to enjoy the prose account, Arguing With The Wind.

There are 29 poems in the collection.


Martin