Country of Light

Joseph Stroud was all but unknown when, in 1998, Below Cold Mountain appeared. As reviewers took note of this gorgeous book by a reclusive poet, Stroud's poems found a larger audience: Garrison Keillor read them on NPR and his poems were reprinted in The Los Angeles Times and Washington Post. The sentiment shared by readers and booksellers was one of discovery.

In Joseph Stroud's new book, his poetic imagination infuses landscapes, hard travel, and commonplace objects. Whether trekking throu...