After the fire
Subtitle: a writer finds his place
By: Paul Zimmer.
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Published: 2002
Place of publication: Minneapolis
Language: eng
Number of pages: 229
Subjects: Zimmer, Paul -- Homes and haunts -- Wisconsin; Poets, American -- 20th century -- Biography; Country life -- Wisconsin; Wisconsin -- Intellectual life -- 20th century; Wisconsin -- Social life and customs
Genres: Biography.
Description: "We all dream of finding the place we can be most ourselves, the landscape that seems to have been crafted just for us. The poet Paul Zimmer has found his: a farm in the driftless hills of southwestern Wisconsin, a region of rolling land and crooked rivers, "driftless" because here the great glaciers of the Patrician ice sheet split widely, leaving behind a heart-shaped area untouched by crushing ice.".

"After the Fire is the story of Zimmer's journey from his boyhood in Canton, Ohio, and his days as a soldier during atomic tests in the Nevada desert, to his many years as a writer and publisher, and the rural tranquillity of his present life. Zimmer juxtaposes timeless rustic subjects with flashbacks to key moments: his first and only boxing match, his return to the France of his ancestors, his painful departure from the publishing world after forty years.

These stories are full of humor and pathos, keen insights and poignant meditations, but the real center of the book is the abiding beauty of the driftless hills, the silence and peace that is the source of and reward for Zimmer's hard-won wisdom. Above all, it is a consideration of the ways that nature provides deep meaning and solace, and of the importance of finding the right place."--BOOK JACKET.