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Because I Don't Have Wings

Because I Don't Have Wings: Stories of Mexican Immigrant Life

"A book that would be vital and germane even if there weren't major debates going on about immigrant rights is Central Washington University emeritus professor Philip Garrison's eloquent Because I Don't Have Wings: Stories of Immigrant Life (University of Arizona). Underlying this account of the lives of Mexican workers doing agricultural work in the Inland Northwest is over thirty years' work on Philip Garrison's part, researching both here and in Mexico. His commitment is further manifested in his being a cofounder of APOYO, a grassroots nonprofit that works on behalf of central Washington's mexicano communities. "In these exquisite essays somewhere between lyrics and odes -- Philip Garrison maps out the new borderlands. . . . Weaving together both testimonio and text, history and his own experience, Because I Don't Have Wings leads both mexicano and Americano towards an encounter neither counted upon. . . . Garrison is a mestizo's mestizo, a literary coyote who smuggles us across not just one but many lines."

-- Rubén Martinez

  

Waiting for the Earth to Turn Over

 Waiting for the Earth to Turn Over

"Enlightening us with fresh perspective on well-known elements of the mythic West, entertaining us with anecdotes of the post-Cold War West, Garrison reveals how history, memory and identity are interwoven as he shows us the remarkable landscape of the American West in a light both new to us and very, very old. Waiting for the Earth to Turn Over is an engaging, challenging, unusual, informative, insightful, thoughtful, reflective and one of the most memorable presentation. Highly recommended!"

-- Midwest Book Review
   

Augury

Augury

"We swim in an ocean of stories, Philip Garrison reminds us. There is no other place to swim. Skeptical of easy narratives, he fashions hard ones. Never sure whether meaning can be found, he patiently hunts for it among Aztec tombs, in old newspapers, in superstitions and butterflies, in the face of his father laid out in a coffin, in the back seat of a Mexican highway patrol car, in the tales of Coyote and the search for peyote. Such a list only begins to suggest the breadth of Garrison's curiosity. Augury is proof that the peasures of reading the essay derive from and deeptn the pleasures of reading the world."

-- Scott Russell Sanders, author of The Paradise of Bombs

       
 

Away Awhile
Away Awhile

Away Awhile was a finalist for the San Francisco Poetry Prize and the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry

 

ESSAYS

Pieces set in Spanish-speaking countries are in red.

  • "American Miracles" Northwest Review: Winter, 1986; named as one of 100 notable essays of 1986 in Best American Essays, 1987.
  • "The Republic of Boylston." Colorado Review: Spring, 1988.
  • "Two Love Scenes in Homer." Northwest Review: Spring, 1988.
  • "Finding Our Lives." Puerto del Sol: Summer, 1988.
  • "The Tour Guide." Northwest Review: Fall, 1989; named as one of 100 notable essays of 1989 in Best American Essays, 1990.
  • "Borders." Spring, Northwest Review: 1990; named as one of 100 notable essays of 1990 in Best American Essays,1991.
  • "Monument." High Plains Literary Review: Winter, 1990; named as one of 100 notable essays of 1990 in Best American Essays, 1991.
  • "Independence Day" Northwest Review: Spring, 1991.
  • "Three Days in the Mexican Highlands." Willow Springs: Spring, 1991,
  • "Burning What We Weave.” Puerto del Sol: Fall, 199; named as one of 100 notable essays of 1991 in Best American Essays, 1992.
  • "Meditation." Iowa Review: Spring, 1992; named as one of 100 notable essays of 1992 in Best American Essays, 1993.
  • "Contextures." Southwest Review: Spring, 1992.
  • "Waiting for the Earth to Turn Over." Willow Springs: Winter, 1992.
  • "Nowhere Else." High Plains Literary Review: Winter, 1993.
  • "Keeping Coherence at Arm's Length." Cream City Review: Spring, 1993.
  • "Pilgrims." Creative Nonfiction: Fall, 1993.
  • "Afterimages." Northwest Review: Fall, 1993.
  • "Masks." Northwest Review: Summer, 1994.
  • “Subsong.” Georgia Review: Summer, 1994; named as one of 100 notable essays of 1994 in Best American Essays, 1995.
  • “The Site, The Story.” Georgia Review: Summer, 1995; named as one of 100 notable essays of 1995 in Best American Essays, 1996.
  • "Recognizable Outlines." AWP Chronicle: Summer, 1995.
  • “Eavesdropping.” Gettysburg Review: Spring, 1996; named as one of 100 notable essays of 1996 in Best American Essays, 1997.
  • “At the Center of the Americas.” Southwest Review: Summer, 1996.
  • “The Last Nuance.” Northwest Review: Summer, 1997; named as one of 100 notable essays of 1997 in Best American Essays, 1998.
  • “Working Wet.” Witness: Winter, 1997.
  • “Nobody’s Case Study.” North American Review: Fall, 1998.
  • "Love Stories, Exile, and the Greek-Chorus Effect." Northwest Review: Winter, 1999; named as one of 100 notable essays of 1999 in Best American Essays, 2000.
  • " La Reconquista in the Inland Empire." Southwest Review: Spring, 1999;
    reprinted with Spanish translation in Tameme 3, 2003.
  • “I See These Things and Keep Quiet.” Northwest Review: Spring, 2001;
    named as one of 100 notable essays of 1999 in Best American Essays, 2002.
  • “Miracles, Possessions.” Northwest Review: Fall, 2004.
ESSAY COLLECTIONS

In June of 1990, Augury, my book-length manuscript, was awarded the Associated Writing Programs' 1990 award in creative nonfiction. It received a cash prize of $1000 and appeared in May, 1991 from the University of Georgia Press. In October, 1992, Augury won a Governor's Writers Award, sponsored by the Washington Commission for the Humanities and the Washington State Library. In September, 1996, the University of Utah Press published my second essay collection, Waiting for the Earth to Turn Over. My third collection, Because I Don’t Have Wings appeared from the University of Arizona Press in Spring, 2006.

COLLECTIONS OF POETRY

  • The Deer Paintings. Portland, Oregon: Prensa de Lagar Press, 1969. (a chapbook of 14 pp.)
  • A Woman and Certain Women. Portland, Oregon: Trask House Press, 1971. (a chapbook of 32 pp.)
  • Lipstick. Staffordshire, England: Grosseteste Review Books,1974.
  • Lime Tree Notes. Staffordshire, England: Grosseteste Review Books,1975. (a chapbook of 27 pp.)
  • Away Awhile. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Lynx House Press, 1985. (Away Awhile was a finalist for the San Francisco Poetry Prize and the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.)

TRANSLATIONS

  • Poems of Juan Bullitta. "Salaverry Avenue," "Tailor from Lima," "Getting Here Again." Between Fire and Love: Contemporary Peruvian Writing. Portland, Oregon: Mississippi Mud Press, Fall, 1980.
  • Story by Luis Urteaga Cabrera. "A Voice in the Shadows" Between Fire and Love. Fall, 1980.
  • Selected poems of César Vallejo arranged in interview format. "An Interview with César Vallejo", Northwest Review, Fall, 1983.
  • Short story by Heriberto Guzmán. "Wood Days." Northwest Review, Winter, 1998.
  • Short story by Raúl Mejía. “Banquets.” Mexico: A Traveler’s Literary Companion. Berkeley, California: Whereabouts Press, Spring, 2006.

 
©2006-07, Philip Garrison; web desigh: Patricia Garrison