Mount Athabasca

The Rocky Mountain Poems blog post has consistently ranked among the most-visited pages on this site, since I posted it 10 years ago this month. Before that, it enjoyed similar popularity on another one of my blogs.

Over those years I had a few inquiries whether it was available in book form. Now it is.

Last year was a bumpy one, during which I underwent two followup surgeries to a more challenging operation on Halloween, 2024 (not a treat!). Nonetheless, I produced two books in between, including the previously-announced Eighties Vancouver.

The Rocky Mountain Poems, collects 20 poems — the first written on my second visit to the Rockies in 1973 — and photographs also made over more than 4 decades, to summon a picture of a time and lifestyle that could not have arisen in another era or a different landscape.

The book is available internationally in both hardcover and softcover through the Blurb bookstore.

“Raymond Parker captures the disconnection of the rural man in urban spaces. He observes the wilderness as an intimacy. These poems call from the tree line, urging you back.” — Micheline Maylor, Poet Laureate Emerita of Calgary