Hammerhorn Lake

Garry Gay, John Thompson, and Michael Dylan Welch. Foster City, California: Press Here, 1995, 12 pages.

Over the Memorial Day weekend in September of 1994, I travelled with Garry Gay and John Thompson to Hammerhorn Lake in California’s Yolla Bolly Wilderness. We also climbed to the top of nearby Hammerhorn Mountain, gaining more than 4,000 feet (about 1,230 meters) in elevation (the mountain tops out at 7,543 feet, or 2,299 meters). It was on this hike, nearing treeline, that I first thought of using “Tundra” as the name for a poetry journal, and in 1999 I did indeed replace my journal Woodnotes with a new journal named Tundra. Garry, John, and I wrote rengay together all that weekend in 1994, and this book was the result. Each of the book’s eight rengay are linked to here. Links go to my Rengay website, where you can also learn more about the form. Hammerhorn Lake was the first book of rengay ever published. You can also read the book’s brief introduction.       +