Too Late to Turn Back Now : Prose & Poems, 1980-2016

Poetry. Literary Nonfiction. At long last his collected works are available in a handsome volume from Empty Bowl. TOO LATE TO TURN BACK NOW gathers all of Wilcox's hard-to-find, out-of-print and limited-edition books and adds a generous selection of new poems and prose pieces. Included is Wilcox's widely praised first book, Here Among the Sacrificed, a collection of poems, stories and short prose coming from the poet's experiences riding freight trains. It rings with the clang and gritty dust of America's freight yards, and takes a compassionate look at the hobos who ride, heirs of a Depression-era community who, in a metaphoric and very real sense, were "dropped off on a side-track." In "The Boneyards" the poet, camped by an abandoned warehouse outside Mason City, Iowa, echoes Kenneth Rexroth and offers a playful nod to West Coast nature poems. Love, travel, friendship, adventure, misadventure and loss. Wilcox strikes universal chords in a fresh and accessible way. His poems and stories come comfortably dressed for any season, neatly packed and ready for the journey. Finn Wilcox distills for readers of off-the-road literature the sweet wine and tangy whiskey of his earlier books, and adds a healthy supply of new Wilcox work. This collection demands to be read to your beloveds, to your children and parents. An elegant tour de force by a devoted artist, here's a book shaped by the precision and compassion for which Finn is loved among workers of the word, and of the woods and sea.

"This is a book like no other. From hobo jungles alongside the railroad yards of the American West to the cave of a hermit nun on a mountain in China, from the hard-scrabble life of Pacific Northwest tree-planters to the tenderest of love lyrics, these poems and prose anecdotes sparkle like little gems. Masterful in their rendition of vernacular speech, with a touch of Han Shan, they are always engaging, often amusing. Quirky. Luminous. Authentic. Finn Wilcox is a man of great heart, and this book is witness to it."--Clem Starck

"O lucky me! O lucky you! O lucky world! this new book by Finn Wilcox includes all of his railroad masterpiece Here Among the Sacrificed. And when Finn wasn't on the rails with friends and making friends, he was tramping in China with other friends and making friends, and poems, and putting together stories, that he sometimes, I bet, told to fellow treeplanters of the Pacific Northwest as they hunched over a mountainside setting in a new forest. Finally, Finn would go home, and when he was home, Finn wrote love poems."--Bob Arnold

"These stories and poems are the sort I'd expect to find someday among the men's clothing at Goodwill: survivors of the real world, not something I'd wear to a job interview."--Bill Porter

"Wilcox opens the section of new work with memories of, and a tribute to, poet Robert Sund. Sund, much admired by the Northwest poets, embodied an Asian simplicity in his life and writing. Wilcox's work contains his own simplicity of subject and style, but Buddhist detachment is replaced with a love of friends, family and people met on the road, which shines through his words."--Jenny Westdal

"Gregarious, grateful and still ready for mischief behind that bushy beard, Wilcox is a Northwest treasure."--Barbara Lloyd McMichael

"Wilcox is refreshingly modest in his approach, and his language carries the tempo and vernacular of common speech. At one point he refers to his own poems as 'A lucky pull / of the rabbit / from a hat.' But it's not luck that crafts insightful love poems such as 'Close Enough,' 'Women,' or 'The Walk Home,' a poem that explores Alzheimer's, quiet dignity and 'love as simple courage.'"--Tim McNulty

"Whether in journals, stories, poems, Wilcox is always accessible, passionate, sometimes serious, sometimes funny and sometimes seriously funny, instructive in the ways of living a good life, a life of conscious choices, without being preachy or pedagogical."--Larry Lawrence

Finn Wilcox worked in the woods at the upper elevations of the Olympics and the Cascades with Olympic Reforestation Incorporated, a forest workers co-op, for twenty-five years; he planted well over a million trees. He rode freight trains for several years to learn about the life, journeys, and history of the once-respected American Hobo. His first book, Here Among the Sacrificed (Empty Bowl, 1984), includes the poignant images of legendary Northwest photographer Steven R. Johnson, depicting people in boxcars and railroad yards who appear in Finn's memorable poems and stories. In addition to the full content of Here Among the Sacrificed, Wilcox's latest collection, TOO LATE TO TURN BACK NOW contains his poems from Nine Flower Mountain, detailing travels in China; LESSON LEARNED, a group of love poems; and Not Letting Go, a suite of new poems and stories. With Jeremiah Gorsline, Finn edited WORKING THE WOODS, WORKING THE SEA: AN ANTHOLOGY OF NORTHWEST WRITING (Empty Bowl, 2008). Finn and his wife Pat Fitzgerald live in Port Townsend.