Crosscut: Poems

by Sean Prentiss

Sean Prentiss takes readers into what it means to be a rookie trail-crew leader guiding a motley collection of at-risk teens for five months of backbreaking work in the Pacific Northwest. It is a world where the sounds of trail tools--Pulaskis, McLeods, and hazel hoes--filter into dreams and set the rhythm of each day. In this memoir-in-poems, Prentiss shares a music most of us will never experience, set to tools swung and sharpened, backdropped by rain and snow and sun, as individuals transform into crew.

Genres: Poetry

120 pages, Paperback

First published January 6, 2020

About the author

Sean Prentiss is the author of Finding Abbey: A Search for Edward Abbey and His Hidden Desert Grave, which won the National Outdoor Book Award. He is also the author of Crosscut: Poems. He is the co-editor of two anthologies about creative nonfiction, The Science of Story and The Far Edges of the Fourth Genre. He is the co-author of Environmental and Nature Writer: A Writer's Guide and Anthology. Forthcoming is Advanced Creative Nonfiction: A Writer's Guide and Anthology.

Reviews

[Chris LaTray · Rating 5 out of 5]

A perfect start to the year's poetry reading. I particularly like the last section, the reflections on the years since the events of the first sections occurred; on the softening of hands, the memories, the quiet longing. This is the kind of thing I come to poetry for, and Prentiss delivers wonderfully.

[Gina Tron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great insight into a specific world which many of us won't experience. Getting to know at-risk teens while roughing it, working, in nature thousands of miles away from the person he loves, Sean shows us through his poetry-memoir a vulnerable side.

[Michael Garrigan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great collection of poems. Sean has a keen eye and incredible ability to capture landscapes and our connections with the trails we walk and work.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a memoir-in-poems, this was…ok. There’s a tendency with free verse to take what could be a standard prose sentence, throw in a few line breaks, add some random piece of imagery as the final line, and hope it comes off and deep and impactful. Crosscut suffers more than a bit from that.

But.

But the thing is, I still love this poetry. When I first I stumbled on one of Crosscut’s poems excerpted in a magazine, it stopped me short with the recognition: I know this. The poem, “Museum of Hand Tools” – detailing the daily ritual of counting your trail tools to ensure none have been forgotten in the undergrowth – so perfectly spoke to the end-of-the-day rhythm of trail life, brought me so strongly back to when I had been in a similar place, that I knew I wanted to read the entire work.

I recognized so many small moments of my own time with a trail crew in this book, from buying boots to that particular forest reek that embeds itself in your tent and your skin. Prentiss captures the complexity of emotion that comes with trail work: the simultaneous cursing and loving your work and where you are; the strange grief and self-crisis that comes when you finally go back to the “real world” and wonder if you made the right choice. Reading this poetry was recognition that others have shared the nostalgia and the looking backward to that time spent in the wilderness, and for that, I will cherish this collection.

I don’t know if this work would speak as strongly to someone who has never been on a trail crew. But if you have, in a way, reading these poems is like coming home.

[Stephanie Cornais · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t know enough about poetry to know what kind of format this book is in, but I really it. The few poetry books I have read, seem to jump all over the place and jump all over a timeline. I like that it was a clear story, told in poems, with a beginning and end. I will always be partial to this book because I was lucky enough to hear some of the poems read by the author around a campfire after a long day of paddling. They hit differently in that setting, but it was just as enjoyable to read the rest of the poems from the comfort of my couch.

[Leanne Renee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up at a local bookstore in Alaska, now I’m sad it’s not everywhere. Beautiful words for what seems like beautiful people. Gentle writing for a topic that seems callous, takes a very special person to do such a thing.

[Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though Sean Prentiss has yet to write a straightforward autobiography, he has a unique forte as a writer and poet who infuses autobiographical elements into his creative output.

In his debut, Finding Abbey: The Search for Edward Abbey and His Hidden Desert Grave , Prentiss traces his cross-country journey searching for the ghost of famed environmental writer, Edward Abbey. He interviews Abbey's closest friends and compatriots, visits Abbey's homes and haunts, ruminates on both the man and his many myths, and culminates the tale by seeking out Abbey's hidden desert grave.

But in addition to unearthing the hidden sides of Abbey, Prentiss is on a quest to answer other pressing questions concerning himself: What is important to him? What is he running from? More importantly, what is he running toward? Prentiss's quest to "find Abbey" is also a quest to find himself.

And in that same spirit, Prentiss has produced a themed collection of autobiographical poems, Crosscut. Years ago, long before marriage, career, and fatherhood, Prentiss was offered the opportunity by the Northwest Youth Corps to lead a crew of troubled youths into the wilds of the Pacific Northwest to perform backbreaking trail work. For five months, Prentiss and his crew of about a half-dozen young adults set up camps in wilderness areas across Oregon and Washington, living out of tents and sleeping beneath the the stars between long, hot days of labor.

It is an interesting bunch Prentiss leads, young adults barely out of their childhoods, yet all running from something -- drugs, criminal histories, and so on. And so too is Prentiss, running from something, as he explains on page 34,

They dream I'm some
put-together adult.
Catherine out there,
a ballast. But she's
on the wrong side
of unanswered
phone calls & I'm just
weeks since drinking
toward blackout,
mere miles from
the nearest store selling
Oly or Rainier in bottles.

But that shouldn't give you the wrong idea about the overall tone of this book; rather, it is a book about beauty, healing, and optimism, in spite of troubles. In these sparse, compact poems, the reader learns the ropes, experiences the successes and tribulations, and grows alongside Prentiss and his crew. I felt sad as the five-month stint comes to a close later in the book, and I felt extremely sad and nostalgic for my own time spent out west that came to a close too quickly. But as Prentiss states on page 81, "May these trails/birth you & me -- us -- into/some new home." Years on, he seems to have found his place of belonging in the world outside that realm; I hope I too can do the same someday.

Let's hope this worthwhile collection doesn't fly under the radar. This is the type of poetry that, were he still alive, Jim Harrison would likely have enjoyed. Those who enjoy his work would be well-advised to pick up this book.