Heart in the Bony Middle: Poetic Dispatches from Grand Canyon and Plateau Country

In Heart in the Bony Middle, Southwest journalist, author, playwright, and poet Seth Muller sets down forty poems unearthed from Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce Canyon, and the surrounding landscape. The poems include meditations on such geologic phenomena as the Great Unconformity, the weathering of slickrock, and ancient fossilized footprints in the Coconino Sandstone. They also cross paths with ravens, coyotes, bighorn sheep, California condors, mules, and rattlesnakes. The words are crafted with heart, humility, and humor. They range from the unapologetically sentimental celebrations of canyon skies, temples, dusks, and dawns, to the folly of humanity against the significance of grandeur. Muller finds solace and comfort and, above all, truth and meaning in the chasm.