Poems from Ish River Country: Collected Poems and Translations

Poems from Ish River Country collects the complete poems of poet, painter, and calligrapher Robert Sund. His few published volumes of poetry and frequent public readings established his reputation as one of the most distinctive poetic voices of the Pacific Northwest, where he enjoyed a tremendous popularity. With short, imagistic poems, in the tradition of William Carlos Williams and Kenneth Rexroth, he distills the essence of the Northwest landscape and in plain speech celebrates themes of family, friendship, work and quiet contemplation.

Included here are the poet's long out of print and award-winning collections, Bunch Grass, which gave literary voice to the rolling wheat country east of the Cascade Mountains in his native Washington State, and Ish River, which celebrated the misty, riverine landscape of the Puget Sound country, a place, in the poet's words, "between two mountain ranges where / many rivers / run down to an inland sea." But the greater part of this collection contains poems unpublished during the poet's lifetime or published only in very limited editions. There is also a generous selection of his translations, from Issa, Buson, Basho, and most especially from the Swedish poet Rabbe Enckell, with whom Sund felt a close affinity.