The View from the Back of a Whale: Poems and Selected Prose

by Pat Garber

The poetry and prose selections in this book serve as a kind of memoir of the poet's life and as a testament to the things she most loves and believes in. They record her spiritual journey across America, from a farm in Virginia to the Pacific coast of Washington; from the bottom of the Grand Canyon to the Outer Banks of North Carolina; from the inner city of Buffalo to the wilds of the Adirondack Mountains of New York. Joy, sorrow, humor, despair and hope are encapsulated in these pages. Pat's passion for the natural world and for her loved ones, her struggles to find meaning in the world around her and in her own life form the fabric of this collection. She hopes to leave the reader with a sense that one can find joy in the simplicity of a dragonfly wing, beauty in the desolation of an inner city side street, and hope where there seems to be none. Pat Garber is an award-winning journalist and author. Born and raised in Short Pump, Virginia, she also calls home the island of Ocracoke, North Carolina, the Adirondack Mountains of New York, and often-times, the Open Road. This is her first book of poetry.

148 pages, Paperback

Published October 27, 2018

About the author

Pat Garber Bio

Pat Garber’s goal as a young girl was to grow up with lots of stories to tell, and she has done just that. A native of Short Pump, Virginia (not far from Richmond) Pat was raised on a farm with horses and a myriad array of other animals. She has degrees in Native American Studies and in Environmental Anthropology, and is a licensed teacher for the state of Virginia. She has been a federally licensed wildlife rehabilitator and a licensed volunteer with the North Carolina’s Sea Turtle Stranding Network.

She has done just about every kind of job there is, from pushing a hot dog cart in San Francisco to milking cows on a dairy farm in western Washington; from serving pizzas in Bend, Oregon, to crewing on sailboats in the Bahamas; from teaching inner-city Head Start classes in Buffalo, New York to working as an archaeologist on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. She has been a motel maid on the island of Ocracoke, North Carolina; a soda jerk at an ice cream parlor in La Veta, Colorado; a wilderness trip leader at a rehab center for juvenile delinquents in Flagstaff, Arizona; and the executive director of the Ocracoke Preservation Society and Museum in Ocracoke, NC. She taught for three years on the Havasupai Indian Reservation at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and served as project manager and script writer for a video-documentary on Havasupai agriculture. She worked for the Environmental Protection Agency researching and writing a new policy for the Office of Pesticides and Toxic Substances to use on Indian lands. For a year she was caretaker of a 1400 acre cattle ranch in Southern Arizona, riding fence lines, checking water-gaps, and lassoing calves from her horse Brown. A singer-songwriter, she has performed at coffee houses, art openings, and protest gatherings in various places.
All of these experience are incorporated into her books.

Pat has been writing for newspapers and magazines in North Carolina, Arizona, New York, and Colorado since 1990, including history features and an award-winning nature column called “From Sea to Sound.” Her first book, Ocracoke Wild, was published in 1995, and she has since written eight books on a variety of subjects. Pat calls home the island of Ocracoke Island, NC, the Adirondack Mountains of upstate NY, and her home state of Virginia. She remains passionate about her friends and family, her work with animals, and her writing.