Michael Hogan, as a poet and educator, has been gifted with friendships of fellow writers throughout most of his life. Three of these were Nobel laureates, still others household names: Seamus Heaney, W.S. Merwin, Charles Bukowski, Marge Piercy, Naomi Shihab Nye and Ray Bradbury, among a dozen others .What is surprising is what he manages to do with such experiences in this book. Through a series of narrations centered on wide-ranging episodes with other poets, the author distills a unique kind of ars poetica, one that is tied less to a traditional memoir, than to the impression these men and women left upon him, and which conveys to the reader invaluable advice about the practice and the craft of writing.

The book has a propulsive quality, as Hogan artfully blends dialogue and description with analysis and explanation to convey important truths about who we are and how and why our lives matter. And this, regardless of our beliefs and hopes about what may follow our allotted earthly span of life.

In reading Walking Each Other Home, you will experience surprises and discoveries, while overhearing Michael Hogan's conversations with poets, and reading his reflections on poetry as craft and art and experience. You will better understand how poetry offers us hope and consolation, how it helps us live our lives more fully, authentically, rewardingly.

Michael Hogan also provides tips for writing poetry and for reading it-guidance from the poets gathered here, Hogan's own advice mingled with theirs. This is just one of the many benefits you will derive from this engaging book.