Selected Poems: Alaska & Northwest

If I’ve seemed a little distracted lately, it’s because I’ve been working on releasing a new title under my company, Yeldagalga Publications, LLC. Yesterday, we published a new ebook by Richard Lee Harris, Selected Poems: Alaska & Northwest: Alaska, Alberta, British Columbia, Washington.

If you’ve been a long time follower of this blog, you know that Richard Lee Harris, better known to me as “Dad H.” is my father-in-law. I told you about his first book of poems, Reimagine when it came out. This time around, he’s enjoying a closer relationship with his publisher, as it were.

Dick grew up in Washington state, and has always been a traveler, particularly to visit family, including relatives in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, and of course, us in Alaska. He and Mom actually saw Haines before Michelle or Aly did, coming here years ago with the program that used to be called Elderhostel. He’s written poetry at every stop, recording his thoughts and impressions of the sights and people.

Mom, a.k.a. Helen, painted the cover image, which records the day they watched Inupiaq whale hunting crews off shore at Barrow.

Being a collection of selected poems means I’ve heard and read most of these works for years. My favorite, predictably enough, commemorates Aly’s birth and baptism 19 years ago. Given that her mother and I were a little distracted at the time, it’s nice that Dad was on hand to pay attention to what was going on for us. My favorite edition of the poem is framed with photos of Aly, and hangs on our cabin wall.

Selected Poems: Alaska & Northwest is currently only available via ebook; we’ll be releasing a hard copy in the coming weeks. The hard part is over. Formatting poems to look like they’re supposed to in an electronic format is not easy!

This seems like the first “real” publication from my company, since I’m not the author. Sure, it’s still in the family. But hey, at least our last names are different! I have to start somewhere, I guess.