This Death by Drowning

by William Kloefkorn

Overview

The first volume in William Kloefkorn's four-part memoir which, when completed, will cover the four elements: water, fire, earth, and air.

This Death by Drowning is a memoir with a difference-an artfully assembled collection of reminiscences, each having something to do with water. The book's epigraph, from Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through It, proclaims, "I am haunted by waters." So-and in most rewarding ways-is William Kloefkorn.

The first chapter recalls the time when, at age six, the author "came within one gulp of drowning" in a Kansas cow-pasture pond, only to be saved by his father. A later chapter recounts Kloefkorn's younger brother's near death by drowning a few years later; still another envisions the cycle of drought and torrential rains on his grandparents' Kansas farm. There are fanciful memories of the Loup and other Nebraska rivers, interlaced with Mark Twain's renderings of the Mississippi and John Neihardt's poetic descriptions of the Missouri. And there are stories of more recent times-a winter spent in a cabin on the Platte River, and an often amusing Caribbean cruise that Kloefkorn took with his wife.

William Kloefkorn (1932-2011) was an emeritus professor of English at Nebraska Wesleyan University and Nebraska's state poet. He is the author of many volumes of poetry, among them Burning the Hymnal; Going Out, Coming Back; and Swallowing the Soap, available in a Bison Books edition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780803277991
Publisher:	UNP - Bison Books
Publication date:	02/01/2001
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	155
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.34(d)

About the Author

William Kloefkorn (1932–2011) was an emeritus professor of English at Nebraska Wesleyan University and Nebraska’s state poet. He is the author of many volumes of poetry, among them Burning the Hymnal; Going Out, Coming Back; and Swallowing the Soap, available in a Bison Books edition.

Editorial Reviews

“Kloefkorn’s style comes not only from long attention to the world, but from sustained immersion in the art and craft of language, and from granting himself the freedom to write at length and in depth about the people and places he cares about most. Such work can rise toward sublime visions of the interconnections of people and place.”—Jeff Gundy, Georgia Review

Georgia Review - Jeff Gundy

“Most of [Kloefkorn’s] memoir is a fond immersion in his own childhood and subsequent education, beginning with his near death by drowning a week before he enters first grade and continuing with a series of river journeys and watery sojourns and eventually ending with a Caribbean cruise. But that description hardly does justice to Kloefkorn’s skill as a storyteller. . . . The human interruptions, time spent with his wife and his granddaughter, transform Kloefkorn’s personal reminiscence into something more, something that gestures beyond the page, that places the reader and all humanity within the natural cycles of water and seasons.”—Michael L. Hall, Sewanee Review

Sewanee Review - Michael L. Hall

“Kloefkorn is a perfect blend of poet, raconteur, and scholar. He provides breath-taking descriptions of nature, and he quotes fascinating authorities on lands and rivers, including John Neihardt, pioneer James Evans, Mark Twain, and many more. This Death by Drowning, like Kloefkorn’s poetry—perhaps like all poetry—is about the price of wonder. Wonder at nature, wonder at fate, and wonder—finally, luminously—at the miraculous depths and tributaries of the human soul.”—Brent Spencer, Nebraska Life

Nebraska Life - Brent Spencer

"Sad, humorous, whimsical, sentimental, and of course poetic, these memoirs celebrate the profundity of life and death."—Booklist

Booklist

“Kloefkorn’s style comes not only from long attention to the world, but from sustained immersion in the art and craft of language, and from granting himself the freedom to write at length and in depth about the people and places he cares about most. Such work can rise toward sublime visions of the interconnections of people and place.”—Jeff Gundy, Georgia Review

— Jeff Gundy

Georgia Review

“Kloefkorn is a perfect blend of poet, raconteur, and scholar. He provides breath-taking descriptions of nature, and he quotes fascinating authorities on lands and rivers, including John Neihardt, pioneer James Evans, Mark Twain, and many more. This Death by Drowning, like Kloefkorn’s poetry—perhaps like all poetry—is about the price of wonder. Wonder at nature, wonder at fate, and wonder—finally, luminously—at the miraculous depths and tributaries of the human soul.”—Brent Spencer, Nebraska Life

— Brent Spencer

Nebraska Life

“Most of [Kloefkorn’s] memoir is a fond immersion in his own childhood and subsequent education, beginning with his near death by drowning a week before he enters first grade and continuing with a series of river journeys and watery sojourns and eventually ending with a Caribbean cruise. But that description hardly does justice to Kloefkorn’s skill as a storyteller. . . . The human interruptions, time spent with his wife and his granddaughter, transform Kloefkorn’s personal reminiscence into something more, something that gestures beyond the page, that places the reader and all humanity within the natural cycles of water and seasons.”—Michael L. Hall, Sewanee Review

— Michael L. Hall

Sewanee Review

"Sad, humorous, whimsical, sentimental, and of course poetic, these memoirs celebrate the profundity of life and death."—Booklist

Booklist