Travel in My Borrowed Lives

Book excerpt: For almost half a century, Donald Everett Axinn has been writing poetry in which, as Jay Parini notes in his introduction, "the stamp of individuality, the personal voice of the poet, lives on every page." A seasoned pilot, as well as a poet and novelist, Axinn revels as much in viewing the world from above as he lovingly, though often wryly, surveys the scene around him here below. Whether in his charming love poems, his delight in the evolving seasons, or his search to understand people and places - and indeed himself - Axinn offers a fresh look at the world through the eyes of a constantly questing, and questioning, poet. "Here is a man," writes Parini, "who has looked at the world from many angles . . . with a sense of gathering wisdom."