Poets on the Peak

 

Follow the "birth of the wilderness ethic" of Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Jack Kerouac, and others from the early 1950s to the late 1950s. Photographer John Suiter bases this book on letters between the poets and authors, and traveled to Desolation Peak, the Upper Saggit (Sourdough Mountain and other peaks) in order to photograph the mountains and re-find the solitude and historical moments that had occurred in such places fifty years ago. This is a beautiful book, complete with fantastic information and memory. The book is published by Counterpoint, a member of the Perseus Books Group. ISBN: 1-58243-148-5.

Links:

http://www.counterpointpress.com/SuiterPhotos.html
http://www.counterpointpress.com/1582431485.html

Quotes:

“This is a very cool book. Buy it. Read it. Let its story sink in, slowly, with appreciation, like watching a mountain at sunup. It is a scholarly book about the connections between people, places, cultures (and culture), politics, religion, scholarship, wilderness, mountains, rivers, poetry, literature, ecology, community, environment and revelation. It is full of information, insight, inspiration, history and wisdom.”
—Dick Dorworth, The Mountain Gazette

“...a fresh, engaging chronicle of a gateway period in American cultural life, the rise of the beats...The book works best not as a chronicle, although it does that well, nor as a set of mini-biographies but as a reminder that the twin of the active life is the contemplative one.”
—National Geographic Adventure

“What an interesting book! Suiter, a professional photographer & an eastern city-dweller all his life, spent two weeks living in the fire lookout where Jack Kerouac & other Beat poets worked (Desolation Peak in WA's Cascades), and got hooked big time! A year later he met poets Gary Snyder & Philip Whalen, then spent more time again in the Cascades. The outcome is this beautifully illustrated portrait of Beat icons Kerouac, Snyder, & Whalen and the years in the Cascades high country that shaped their lives & work. Based on previously unpublished letters & journals, Suiter creates a group portrait of the three that transcends the tired urban cliches of the "Beat Life," and creates a photographic homage to the Cascades landscape.”
—Trailstuff.com

“John Suiter, Boston-based writer and photographer, has mined letters, journals and extensive interviews to recreate that time. His evocation of the North Cascades landscape in words and some 50 black-and-white
photographs is detailed and authentic. He presents a fascinating look into the formative years of two major American poets [Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen], and a brief glimpse into a rare, golden time for Kerouac, a gifted novelist before his long plunge into self-destruction.

“Suiter has paid poetic homage to the work of these three writers and to the timeless landscape that inspired them. Pilgrims take note: The trails up Sourdough, Crater and Desolation mountains are likely to
become a bit more crowded.”
—Tim McNulty, The Seattle Times

“When we think of the Beat generation and its literary icons, we think, mainly, of urban scenes: raucous poetry readings, sparsely-furnished lofts, cosmopolitan coffeehouses, smoky jazz joints and bars ... thus
has the myth of this generation been sculpted, when, in fact, nature and the natural world played a major role in the formation of the lives and minds of many of this movement’s major poets. Nowhere has this nature-based perspective been magnified more telescopically than in Boston-based photographer and writer John Suiter’s book Poets on the Peaks.”
—Tom Crowe, Smoky Mountain News

 

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