To Build My Shadow a Fire

This collection showcases the creative range and essential writing of David Wevill, an elusive and enigmatic poetic figure. His work shines among a generation of postwar poets known for their literary invention, dissemination of poetry in translation, political witness, and obsession with the image. Wevill is a careful observer of the details of life both as pilgrim and exile. A Canadian born in Japan, Wevill was educated in England, and lived in Burma and Spain before he moved to Austin, Texas, where he has spent more than 40 years as a writer, translator, teacher, and editor. These selections were chosen from more than one thousand pages of published work largely unknown in the U.S. and invite further exploration and discovery of this gifted writer.