Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/492

 He is a peripatetic writer, according to one observer:

"His vest pocket reminds one of a series of pipe organs because of the number of huge fountain pens he carries—all filled. For Mr. Wood has the ability to write wherever he may be: on street cars; standing in a queue before a ticket window; waiting for the doctor, the dentist; in between trains, in hotel lobbies. Every little odd minute of the day is scribbled over with ink."

Verne Bright, in an article in the Northwest Literary Review, has summed him up—“Pioneer, soldier, lawyer; humanitarian, iconoclast, poet: such are the six sides to the man.” A semicolon divides the objective from the subjective, with three classifications under each.

Following are the first 57 lines from the Prologue to The Poet in the Desert, published in 1915 when he was 63: