The Mountain Knows the Mountain: A Fire Watch Diary
From firewatcher/poet comes a powerfully meditative with a basis in Japanese poetic form Haibun; comps are Peter Matthiesen's Snow Leopard and The Nine-Headed Dragon River, Terry Tempest Williams, Barry Lopez, and even Norman MacLean's Young Men and Fire.

Multi-award-winning writer Philip Connors had been a fire watcher in the Gila Wilderness for fourteen straight summers when he sustained an injury and was forced to miss a year recovering. When he returned, he resolved to see the mountain with fresh eyes and to keep a detailed notebook.

The result is The Mountain Knows the Mountain, a meticulously observed experience of one fire season chronicled in haibun, the centuries-old prose form dating from Basho’s Narrow Road to the Interior that recounts both inner and outer journeys and incorporates traditional haiku as an occasional element of narrative counterpoint. Though only a beginner in the practice of haiku, Connors deftly weaves close observation, personal reflection, and memory with hard-won knowledge of the forest, of the mountain, and of fire.

The Mountain Knows the Mountain
is both mythic and immediate, a chronicle of daily events granular in their specificity but connected to larger themes of the observed world and the inner life of the observer. Connors captures the various moods of a long season on a mountain; plays with language and ways of seeing; and includes contributing perspectives from his partner, Mónica Ortiz Uribe, and his friend the late editor and publisher Bobby Byrd. Together with the author’s own simple drawings, the resulting snapshots offer incisive visions of how to be intimate with the wild.
1147412070
The Mountain Knows the Mountain: A Fire Watch Diary
From firewatcher/poet comes a powerfully meditative with a basis in Japanese poetic form Haibun; comps are Peter Matthiesen's Snow Leopard and The Nine-Headed Dragon River, Terry Tempest Williams, Barry Lopez, and even Norman MacLean's Young Men and Fire.

Multi-award-winning writer Philip Connors had been a fire watcher in the Gila Wilderness for fourteen straight summers when he sustained an injury and was forced to miss a year recovering. When he returned, he resolved to see the mountain with fresh eyes and to keep a detailed notebook.

The result is The Mountain Knows the Mountain, a meticulously observed experience of one fire season chronicled in haibun, the centuries-old prose form dating from Basho’s Narrow Road to the Interior that recounts both inner and outer journeys and incorporates traditional haiku as an occasional element of narrative counterpoint. Though only a beginner in the practice of haiku, Connors deftly weaves close observation, personal reflection, and memory with hard-won knowledge of the forest, of the mountain, and of fire.

The Mountain Knows the Mountain
is both mythic and immediate, a chronicle of daily events granular in their specificity but connected to larger themes of the observed world and the inner life of the observer. Connors captures the various moods of a long season on a mountain; plays with language and ways of seeing; and includes contributing perspectives from his partner, Mónica Ortiz Uribe, and his friend the late editor and publisher Bobby Byrd. Together with the author’s own simple drawings, the resulting snapshots offer incisive visions of how to be intimate with the wild.
16.99 Pre Order
The Mountain Knows the Mountain: A Fire Watch Diary

The Mountain Knows the Mountain: A Fire Watch Diary

by Philip Connors
The Mountain Knows the Mountain: A Fire Watch Diary

The Mountain Knows the Mountain: A Fire Watch Diary

by Philip Connors

eBook

$16.99 
Available for Pre-Order. This item will be released on September 16, 2025

Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
WANT A NOOK?  Explore Now

Related collections and offers


Overview

From firewatcher/poet comes a powerfully meditative with a basis in Japanese poetic form Haibun; comps are Peter Matthiesen's Snow Leopard and The Nine-Headed Dragon River, Terry Tempest Williams, Barry Lopez, and even Norman MacLean's Young Men and Fire.

Multi-award-winning writer Philip Connors had been a fire watcher in the Gila Wilderness for fourteen straight summers when he sustained an injury and was forced to miss a year recovering. When he returned, he resolved to see the mountain with fresh eyes and to keep a detailed notebook.

The result is The Mountain Knows the Mountain, a meticulously observed experience of one fire season chronicled in haibun, the centuries-old prose form dating from Basho’s Narrow Road to the Interior that recounts both inner and outer journeys and incorporates traditional haiku as an occasional element of narrative counterpoint. Though only a beginner in the practice of haiku, Connors deftly weaves close observation, personal reflection, and memory with hard-won knowledge of the forest, of the mountain, and of fire.

The Mountain Knows the Mountain
is both mythic and immediate, a chronicle of daily events granular in their specificity but connected to larger themes of the observed world and the inner life of the observer. Connors captures the various moods of a long season on a mountain; plays with language and ways of seeing; and includes contributing perspectives from his partner, Mónica Ortiz Uribe, and his friend the late editor and publisher Bobby Byrd. Together with the author’s own simple drawings, the resulting snapshots offer incisive visions of how to be intimate with the wild.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780826368355
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Publication date: 09/16/2025
Sold by: SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format: eBook
Pages: 128
File size: 5 MB

About the Author

Philip Connors has been a fire watcher in New Mexico’s Gila Wilderness for twenty-three years. He is the author of Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout, which won the 2011 National Outdoor Book Award. He is also the author of All the Wrong Places: A Life Lost and Found and A Song for the River. He lives in southern New Mexico.
From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews