Songs of Unreason

#1 on the Poetry Foundation Bestseller List; a Michigan Notable Book; a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist.

“A beautifully mysterious inquiry.”–Booklist

“Songs of Unreason, Harrison’s latest collection of poetry, is a wonderful defense of the possibilities of living.”–The Industrial Worker Book Review

“As in all good poetry, Harrison’s lines linger to be ruminated upon a third or fourth time, with each new reading revealing more substance and raising more questions.”–Library Journal

Jim Harrison’s compelling and provocative Songs of Unreason explores what it means to inhabit the world in atavistic, primitive, and totemistic ways. “This can be disturbing to the learned,” Harrison admits. Using interconnected suites, brief lyrics, and rollicking narratives, Harrison’s passions and concerns–creeks, thickets, time’s effervescence, familiar love–emerge by turns painful and celebratory, localized and exiled.

From “Suite to Unreason”

Where’s my medicine bag? It’s either hiddenor doesn’t exist. Inside are memories of earth: corn pollen, a bear claw, an umbilical cord. If they exist they help me ride the darkheavens of this life. Such fragile wings.

Jim Harrison is the author of thirty books, including Legends of the Fall and River Swimmer, and has served as the food columnist for Esquire. Harrison divides his time between Montana and southern Arizona.