Daybreak on the Water (Paperback or Softback)

As a child, Gary Lark camped where a creek joins Oregon's North Umpqua River, "sleeping in the river's voice." Confessing that "there's a part of me still there / surrounded by enormous trees / the river singing me alive," he offers us Daybreak on the Water, his song-cycle paying homage to the Umpqua. Here, the communion among river and poet and reader is palpable: at the fisherman's table, " the platter is passed from hand to hand, / each tongue tasting the river / in the salmon's flesh." This fisherman's river-poems carry what the Umpqua carries, "the wonderment of living things." -Paulann Petersen, Oregon Poet Laureate Emerita

Daybreak on the Water is a vivid and authentic reminiscence of a rugged, playful, deliberate and reflective life among the wild woods and waterways of Oregon's Umpqua valley. Lark's warmly told and deftly detailed narratives provide a natural and cultural history that will entertain and edify generations of readers. We meet many colorful characters-loggers, anglers, clammers, boatbuilders, poachers, sheriffs, sweethearts and old friends- that allow us to press ourselves "into the tides of each other / releasing our unutterable selves."

-Henry Hughes, Oregon Book Award-winning poet and author of Back Seat with Fish

A lifelong Oregonian, Gary Lark has been a carpenter, janitor, hospital aide, salesman, storyteller, fly fisherman and librarian. His work includes Ordinary Gravity, Airlie Press; River of Solace, winner of the Editor's Choice Chapbook Award from Turtle Island Quarterly, Flowstone Press; In the House of Memory, BatCat Press; Without a Map, Wellstone Press; and Getting By, winner of the Holland Prize. He and his wife Dorothy live in the Rogue Valley.