IhwBack in 2004, Timberline Press, a handpress of books published by Clarence Wolfshohl, produced a book of my hauku (co-written by Julie Wiskirchen). Clarence also designed four zinc-cuts illustrations in the book. 

So I was delighted to see news that Clarence and his friend Mark Vinz are putting out a new handmade book on the El Grito del Lobo Press. In Harm's Way are their dueling poems about quite different childhoods, Clarence's in San Antonio, Texas, and Mark's in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The poems almost read like little short stories narratives about doctors and childhood scabs, theology with a kid POV, teachers, grandparents, baseball and baseball cards, movies, food, learning to drive and a marvelous marble poems ("the one that rolled away") by Mark Vinz. Never knowing Clarence Wolfshohl grew up in Texas, I was pleasantly drawn to his poems that reflected a similar childhood to my early years in New Mexico, his talk of horned toads (we called them horney toads and tried to move a family of them out to the humid Missouri climate in 1977 where they all tragically died), his mention of caliche (who knows caliche outside of the southwest?) and Tex Ritter (my Dad loved "Blood on the Saddle" much more than I did hearing it decades later). I loved Clarence's poem about western idols, "Gunfight at the RKO Corral." I also loved his poem about Mexican food, "Starched in the Barrio." His poem "Under the Bridge" was also a good reflection on childhood imagination appreciating those who came before, petroglyphs under a bridge that:

amazed us, not as archaeologists
first led to Lascaux, but as a wandering tribe
alert we were not the first in this territory.

I also thought Clarence's graphic rabbit-hunting poem, "The Last Hunt," was somewhat chilling. Mark and Clarence both had strong learning to drive poems to end the book, Mark's description of his transcendent love for bumper cars:

All that mattered was racing toward
some car-free outer lane, where I
could circle, endlessly, lost to myself
and the road–all those years and miles
I was suddenly certain were coming.

This letterpress, hand-bound book also has two serigraph illustrations in the middle of the book depicting the poets as young innocents. To order, send $20.00 (postage paid) to:

Clarence Wolfshohl
6281 Red Bud
Fulton, Missouri 65251

Make checks payable to Clarence Wolfshohl. As Mark Vinz says in the introduction, (just like a Norwegian Minnesotan), this collection is "Quite the deal!"