The Flower Seeker: An Epic Poem of William Bartram

William Bartram’s Travels, published in 1791, remains a seminal book for understanding the American South, its flora, fauna, and people. Now, acclaimed poet and novelist Philip Lee Williams has written an epic poem that follows the young William Bartram on his journey in the American South and during his old age in his father’s gardens. It is truly a southern Odyssey, using techniques of fiction and poetry to get deeply inside one of the most remarkable men ever to strap on a pair of boots in America. Written in twenty-four cantos, the book digs deep into the mind and heart of Bartram, who was also an acclaimed visual artist and naturalist. Following in the shadows of other epic poems, The Flower Seeker is a dazzling compendium of poetic devices and approaches. In it, Williams uses the Travels as the basis for an expanding and imaginary universe that describes Bartram’s interior world as much as the one he rode through.