To Live on This Earth

A fifteen-year Alaska resident, Ken Waldman has lived in the Alaskan interior, rural Alaska, Southeast Alaska, and now resides in Anchorage. A former English instructor, he has travelled across the state and throughout the lower forty-eight states for over a decade, reading and performing at a number of venues including schools, coffee houses, bookstores, and bars. He frequently travels to Native Alaskan villages and rural communities where he shares his writing and music with students. This second collection of Waldman's poems deeply resonate in their coverage of his Alaskan experience. From sexy poems (Moonshine) to elegies (John's Place) to storytelling (The Quilt) to political poems (A Nation that Grows, Grows, Grows) to humorous poems (A Week in Eek) to a final statement in 'To Live on This Earth', Waldman creates a deeper understanding through the appearance of simplicity. His Alaskan figures become all of us in extreme conditions; his survival mentality becomes a higher morality of purpose.