David Crews

“Study and mystery guide the lover in these poems, enriching both the journalism and the literature of the Adirondacks, one of the best kept, equally care-worn, secrets of the Eastern half of the nation’s natural history. Crews’ sharp tempos match the walking-rhythms and dissonances of his climbs, spliced against lyric microseconds of surprise, and faith in the visual. His is a country of scars, of winds strong enough to erase a [rock]face and the memory of it.”
   -Judith Vollmer, author of The Water Books

"More than accessing, David Crews has put his boots and his mind on the ground as, mountain by distant mountain, he climbed and then descended all 46 of the region’s highest. ‘Why / don’t you take pictures,’ people ask in one poem. Because a picture leaves everything but getting there out. Because, before the breathless view at the top, which can be glorious, there is the long, breathy effort of getting there.”
-Roger Mitchell, author of Lemon Peeled the Moment Before: New and Selected

Poetic mountain reflections
by Justin Levine + Adirondack Daily Enterprise / 2017

“The writing of David Crews in Wander-Thrush is as evocative as a Hudson River School painting that uses words instead of oil and canvas. These essays are a history lesson, a naturalist’s field journal and an elegiac personal tribute to the Adirondack Park, one of the world’s great natural treasures. Wander-Thrush is poetry in narrative form, which will help even people who have never been to the Adirondacks imagine this wild, hardscrabble and unforgettable terrain of mountains, bogs and birdsong.”
  -Darryl McGrath, author of Flight Paths: A Field Journal of Hope, Heartbreak, and Miracles with New York’s Bird People

“In Wander-Thrush, David Crews helps understand the human forces that re-shaped the Adirondack landscape, nurturing within us an appreciation that transcends its value as a place to play.  It must remain a place to dream, a place of refuge from the cares of a troubled world.  We must learn to see the Adirondacks as David does—as a place where every sound of nature is a concordant note in the song of life.”
  -William C. Janeway, Executive Director, The Adirondack Council

from Wander-Thrush:

Retreat, and a Voice for Wilderness
Sage Magazine / 2018

On Russell M.L. Carson and Peaks and People of the ADIRONDACKS
Adirondack Wilderness Advocates / 2018

In Conversation with David Crews About His Lyrical Essays on the Adirondacks
Interview by Meher Manda + Atticus Review / 2019

A new book of lyric essays pays tribute to the Adirondacks and the natural world
Interview with Todd Moe + North Country Public Radio / 2019

Review of Wander-Thrush
by Jenny Wong + The HOPPER / 2020

I​f you would like a signed book directly from me using a personal check, PayPal, or Venmo, please send an email request (thank you). More books on the Adirondacks from Ra Press here. 

Also find these books at your local bookshop / online via Bookshop.org, or at Lulu / Barnes & Noble.

Or visit any of these local bookshops in New York: Book House at Stuyvesant Plaza / Albany, Adirondack Experience / Blue Mountain Lake, The Mountaineer / Keene Valley, The Bookstore Plus / Lake Placid, Hoss’s Country Corner / Long Lake, Paul Smith’s VIC / Paul Smiths, Northshire Bookstore / Saratoga Springs, Braveheart Books / Stephentown, North Country Books / Utica, Vermont: Bennington Bookshop / Bennington, Crow Bookshop / Burlington, New Jersey: Broad Street Books / Branchville, Black Dog Books / Newton