The perils and poetics of being a fire lookout

Philip Connors grew up on a farm in Minnesota, studied journalism, and got a job at the Wall Street Journal. But after the September 11 attacks and the death of his brother, he left New York behind and took a job as a fire lookout in the Gila National Forest in New Mexico. Following in the footsteps of other fire lookout writers, poets, and philosophers, like Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, and Jack Loeffler, he wrote his first book, Fire Season, in 2011. Since then he written three more books, the latest of which, The Mountain Knows the Mountain, incorporates poetry — particularly haiki — to engage both playful and profound ways of looking at the natural world and the state of our society.