A Short Guide
to The High Plains

by Tom Clark

Introduction by Ed Dorn

ISBN 0-932274-17-X

first edition 1981

cover illustration by Tom Clark

5½" x 8½"

From the Introduction

The miniature essays which make up A Short Guide to the High Plains do the traditional service the lingering traveller in The West has done over the decades. The best of western literature has always been acute observation, whether from geologists or poets. There have been more geologists than poets, as difficult to swallow as that may seem in the present statistic. But the worth of these statements is far beyond observation. When it gets down to the haunting necessities of the mind,

All I want to do
is to go
back to
Pueblo
and let the wind blow
right through me
in the parking lot
by the Trailways Depot

Beyond any explanation. A masterpiece of uncontrolable want.

— Edward Dorn, Boulder, 1 October 1980