Gilfillan:

There is alot travel, physically and mentally. Most poets who focus on 'nature' or natural phenomena, seem to be all about being closer to an otherness, that might be God or some other mystical type mojo. Alot of it just ends up sounding sanctimonious, like someone worried over whether they appreciate something enough. In a book, like Rivers & Birds, which might be categorized as Nature or even Birding, the narration is of watching land as it passes. The sense of mental travel comes from memory and a sense of forlornness. When there is exhultation, its an intent, precise exhultation. Which seems very unlike most writing about nature, where is there is a narrator speaking for the birds and trees, and then they're talking back too and telling the narrator (of course) something about George Bush. Gilfillan has a deeper respect for his experience of the places he goes to.