978-1-887810-00-5

124 pages

foreword by

Brad Dimock

Black Star Press

Trade paperback

$15.00

Go There

Anything you have read about the Grand Canyon is a lie

Language falters and dies before the fact

The experience is inexpressible in words

The Grand Canyon is its own language

Written across space, causality and time

See how puny these words are

Do not believe them

Go there

Grand Canyon

and other Selected Poems

By Amil Quayle

Amil Quayle was born near the Henry's Fork of the Snake River in St. Anthony, Idaho, in 1938. As a boy, he and his brother and friends spent many happy hours playing on the banks and in the water of that magnificent stream in southeast Idaho. Through high school he worked on various farms and developed a deep appreciation and love for the land. In 1961 he ran his first river trip and has been hooked ever since. He was a full-time guide, mostly in the Grand Canyon, for many years and earned a B.S. degree in sociology from the University of Utah. Amil sold his river business and ranched in Nebraska for seven years. He then received an M.A. and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Nebraska and taught English for Utah State University and Idaho State University. But his heart was on the river, and he was privileged to guide on many trips throughout his adventurous life. Amil died in 2016. His two sons and two of his grandchildren are river guides; five other grandchildren are showing river guide potential.

Amil Quayle's striking book of poetry, much of it inspired by his years as a river guide in Grand Canyon, defies description. Perhaps the best way to portray his work would be to quote one of his own poems about Grand Canyon: