In A North Country Life, Vermont's poet laureate, Sydney Lea, brings together a rich, lyric compilation of essays on the women and men who have touched his life. He pays homage to fellow writers John Engels and Annie Fitch, among many other down-to-earth characters, as he weaves together snippets of times shared in the woods and on the lakes and streams of Maine and Vermont.
Fly fishing, turkey hunting and snowshoeing through deep, unexplored powder snow are just some of the backdrops for his often humorous yet melancholy remembrances of a lifetime spent reflecting on nature. Drinking, depression and the effects of aging swirl in and out of passages that describe "mule deer and antelope grazed in the meadows, breaths visible in the cold when they raised their heads." He goes on: "More than one golden eagle circled above. The sage showed the spectral green that would tax a Corot to replicate. But that foggy-glassed bottle of gin was the focus of my mind's eye."
Lea's essays are inspirational and sad, poetic and practical--crammed with the wonder of life and the despondency that accompanies such a full life, as well as the knowledge that at some point his own life will be over, too, his legacy the words he leaves behind on the page. These elegiac narratives take readers closer to understanding the crux of life while immersing them in the splendor of people, places and times that might otherwise be forgotten. --Lee E. Cart, freelance writer and book reviewer