Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Annie Dillard) is neither a book of poetry, nor a book on how to write poetry. It is, however, a book that deserves a place on the bookshelf of any poet who appreciates spare, stunning images that haunt the imagination forever.

Annie Dillard was 29 years old when her first published book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, was awarded the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-fiction. The book has been variously described as “a series of interconnected essays”, “a modern-day Walden Pond” and “a philosophical treatise”. Dillard herself calls it “a non-fiction narrative, not a collection of essays“. Whatever you call it, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is nothing less than stunning. Its form is simple – a collection of vision, a journaliing of Dillard”s observations while living on the banks of Tinker Creek near Roanoke, VA. It is her language and her choice of images and remembrances that elevate Pilgrim far above “a collection of essays”. Page by page it is, by example, a lesson in the art of seeing and recording what is seen. There is philosophy here, there is theology, there is science and nature and exposition of the beauty of the former and the cruelty of the latter. Mostly though, there are images that will haunt you, and phrases that will stay with you, hovering like a hawk just out of sight, waiting for the perfect moment to strike again and again.

Dillard is a poet, and it shows in the rhythm of her writing. While Pilgrim is prose, it is an object lesson in how to create poetry that captures and holds the reader. Pilgrim challenges the reader to go beyond looking and truly SEE the world with words that do more than describe. It is impossible to come away from this book unchanged and unchallenged. Seeing the world through Dillard”s eyes is a transforming experience – the kind of experience which she herself describes thusly:

Then one day I was walking along Tinker Creek thinking of nothing at all and I saw the tree with lights in it. I saw the backyard cedar where. the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focussed and utterly dreamed. It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance [p. 33]

This book is a meditation, a step back from the hours of scratching out words on paper, from the endless writing exercises and attempts to capture in words and phrasings the landscapes around us.