31 Facts About Jim Harrison

James Harrison was an American poet, novelist, and essayist.

Jim Harrison was a prolific and versatile writer publishing over three dozen books in several genres including poetry, fiction, nonfiction, children's literature, and memoir.

Jim Harrison wrote screenplays, book reviews, literary criticism, and published essays on food, travel, and sport.

Jim Harrison indicated that, of all his writing, his poetry meant the most to him.

Jim Harrison published 24 novellas during his lifetime and is considered "America's foremost master" of that form.

Jim Harrison's work has been translated into multiple languages including Spanish, French, Greek, Chinese, and Russian.

Jim Harrison became blind in one eye after a childhood accident.

Jim Harrison wrote about his eye in an early poem:.

Jim Harrison graduated from Haslett High School in 1956.

Jim Harrison's work has appeared in many leading publications, including The New Yorker, Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone, Outside, Playboy, Men's Journal, and The New York Times Book Review.

Jim Harrison published several collections of novellas, two of which were eventually turned into films: Revenge and Legends of the Fall.

Much of Jim Harrison's writing is set in sparsely populated regions of North America and its West.

Jim Harrison lived in Patagonia, Arizona, Livingston, Montana, and Grand Marais, Michigan.

Jim Harrison appeared during season 7 of Bourdain's CNN series, Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, in an episode which first aired on May 15,2016.

Jim Harrison died of a heart attack on March 26,2016, in Patagonia, Arizona.

Jim Harrison said he became a novelist after he fell off a cliff while bird hunting.

When Nicholson heard that Jim Harrison was broke, he sent $30,000, which allowed Jim Harrison to write Legends of the Fall.

Jim Harrison has been described as trying to get at "the soul history of where you live" in this sequel to Dalva, in this case rural Nebraska in the latter half of the 20th century.

Jim Harrison's The English Major is a road novel about a 60-year-old former high school English teacher and farmer from Michigan, who after a divorce and the sale of his farm, heads westward on a mind-clearing road trip.

Jim Harrison wrote two darkly comic detective novels, The Great Leader: A Faux Mystery and The Big Seven, both focused on protagonist Detective Sunderson.

Jim Harrison was aware that his poetry did not have mass appeal.

Jim Harrison wrote that to draw attention to poetry "you would have to immolate a volunteer poet in an 751 BMW".

Jim Harrison hoped that by choosing a small press like Copper Canyon Press, his poetry collections would stay in print.

Jim Harrison began his study of poetry as a teenager and, as a young man, thought of himself as "a poet and nothing else".

Jim Harrison felt a particular affinity for the French poet Rene Char and the Russian poet Sergei Yesenin as they both came "from humble beginnings out in the country".

Jim Harrison became aware of Zen inspired poetry "by way of poets like Clayton Eshleman and Cid Corman, and most powerfully of all through Gary Snyder".

Jim Harrison wrote that his long poem The Theory and Practice of Rivers was "basically Zennist".

Many of Jim Harrison's papers are housed at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Jim Harrison was interviewed in 2004 in Paris by Francois Busnel, and asked how he explained the success of his novel, True North, in the United States where his previous books were not successful.

Many of Harrison's interviews between 1976 and 1999 are collected in the book, Conversations with Jim Harrison, edited by Robert DeMott, published by the University Press of Mississippi, 2002.

Jim Harrison discusses his poetry in an extensive interview in Five Points Magazine.