Like a modern-day Walt Whitman, Bill Holm traverses contemporary America and the world. He moves from Iceland to China, from Oregon to Arizona, from his local post office box to the tunnel of an MRI machine. He revels in humanity's creativity and resourcefulness, he rails at its waste. His poems seek grandeur in both landscape and invention; they speak of waywardness and promise; they are laced with humor, biting honesty, and affection.

A musician, Holm celebrates the truly free market of music, from Schubert, Gould, and Tatum to musical beggars on Wuhan's Luoshi Road. In the masterful poem "Playing Haydn for the Angel of Death," Holm's reaper sits in a straight-backed chair in the side yard, in no hurry to claim his due as long as strains of Haydn drift through the window to amuse his mind with the surprise and order of creation.

This collection includes poems about the staff at the Windows on the World Café, the loss of Senator Paul Wellstone, and the slow retreat from the world of a friend who died of AIDS.

About the author
Bill Holm is the author of several books of essays and poetry, including Coming Home Crazy: An Alphabet of China Essays; The Heart Can Be Filled Anywhere on Earth; Eccentric Islands: Travels Real and Imaginary; The Dead Get By with Everything; and Box Elder Bug Variations, all published by Milkweed. A winner of the Minnesota Book Award, Holm teaches at Southwest State University in Marshall, Minnesota, and spends his summers in Iceland, on the Arctic Circle.