New Release! Best-selling Missouri author Brett Dufur is well known for his guidebooks to Missouri's trails, rivers and history — In Endless River, Brett embarks on a more poetic journey into the captivating beauty of the four seasons in Missouri River country.
Inside the stunning cover by Missouri's New Regionalism artist Bryan Haynes, Brett explores and celebrates the cycles of life and nature in this poignant love letter to the Missouri River, its community and the many gifts it offers to those willing to listen.
Spanning an extensive range of topics and emotions, readers will surely find themselves immersed in new celebrations of the world around them. 160 pages. 6x9 inches. Copyright 2023.
Advance Praise for Endless River
In Endless River, Dufur anchors us firmly to the physical Midwest — Missouri’s rivers, woods, trails, and rainstorms — while zigzagging down its unworldly streams of ancestral ghosts, fatherhood, and the hallelujah sounds found in the siftings of gravel bars. In lines like, ‘We were born in the great middle spaces / in the belly of a timeless hummingbird / already in flight,’ Dufur steps forward in the long, honorable tradition of river poets and songwriters before him. — Elijah Burrell, author of three poetry books, most recently Skies of Blur
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Endless River is a stunning collection of poems on not just the Missouri River but life itself as it meanders from our birth to our death. The river is nature, family, and soul. Dufur’s metaphors flow consistently throughout the seasons of life.
The reader feels the power of the river in the flow and structure of the poetry. Dufur is a storyteller, so the reader is transported along the current, viewing the lives of birds, animals, and loved ones. The use of sonics and rhyme call up the songs of all the voices filling our lives.
The poet sings of joy and laments loss. But the undercurrent of this poetic journey is gratitude and love. This collection of poems is an allegorical and uplifting story of our lives. — BARBARA HARRIS LEONHARD, author of Three-Penny Memories: A Poetic Memoir and Editor for MasticadoresUS
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Some souls are born of wilderness, while others grow up inside words, Brett Dufur is a child of both. When he contemplates his beloved, her unmatched, watery smile, whose journey is never done, his heart just melts.
If you read this verse attentively like a mariner reading the tides, navigating by stars and landmarks, you may find yourself transported, season by season, to places you’ve seen,
or wish you had.
— Timothy Carson, Editor of The Liminal Loop: Astonishing Stories of Discovery and Hope
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Brett Dufur’s collection of poems, Endless River, is as rich as the river banks and waterways he muses upon. Enjoy a delightful collection of thoughtful poems that vary in tone, theme, and style. This is a collection of earthy and real poems that will reconnect you with the rivers in your life.
— David Cormier, PhD, Professor of English
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The breadth of subject matter Brett Dufur passes through makes for an interesting reading journey. And the depth of insight and feeling in these poems touches the soul. He offers both breadth and depth — beautiful.
The fact that he brings others into his journey — his son, for instance — is purposeful and not gratuitous. His son knows how to work with the paddle that he passes to him.
As for the river, it runs wonderfully through this whole volume. Even when the poet takes us away from it, it’s never far, and he brings us back and it feels like coming home to a place we didn’t know we missed.
— David Hazard
Director of Ascent and Author of 30 books, including Blood Brothers, A Place Behind
the World, No Compromise: The Keith Green Story, and Rekindling the Inner Fire, among others.
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Dufur has devoted himself to guiding others in nature. His work as an adventure guide and author has introduced countless people to outdoor pursuits. Now, inside the pages of Endless River, his poetry transports us to places we should visit, introduces us to people we should know, and explains our love of the world around us.
As a poet, Dufur captures the essence of a simpler way of life. He returns us to sleepy little river towns that were once abuzz with all sorts of activity. He reminds us of when neighbors were family, and communities were self-reliant.
His respect for the natural world is clear and his words express the profound impact nature has on certain souls. Those men, women, and children are fortunate enough to know the simple joys of climbing trees, hiking trails, paddling rivers, traveling to remote destinations, observing wildlife, and becoming one with the world around them. With Dufur’s writing, they have a poet to capture the essence of it all.
— Brandon Butler
Driftwood Outdoors