Very Far North

Go home, boy. Sink your toes in that rich soil and grow some roots."" So America's first poet laureate urged his apprentice Timothy Murphy, back in 1972. 'Very Far North' is the third book depicting the consequences of that advice. After his undergraduate years at Yale, Timothy Murphy turned his back on cities and the academic world. Returning to the Red River of the North, he bought and sold, farmed and failed like his forebears. All the while he distilled what he saw, heard or felt into his tall tales and short verses. His first collection compiled more than twenty years of work. Published in 1998, 'The Deed of Gift' promptly sold out its first printing, no small feat for the work of an unknown from North Dakota.