KEN SANDERS PRESENTS READING & BOOKSIGNING BY FORMER USU ENGLISH INSTRUCTOR AMIL QUAYLE

Ken Sanders Rare Books is pleased to announce a reading and book signing by poet, river guide, and former USU instructor Amil Quayle, on Friday, November 6th at 7:00 p.m. at our downtown bookstore (268 South 200 East). Quayle is the author of Grand Canyon and Other Selected Poems ($15.00 paperback). He will read from the book and talk about his many years as a river guide and runner, especially in the Grand Canyon. Copies of Grand Canyon will be available for purchase and signing at the event. Mail orders please add $6.50 shipping and handling. Utah residents please add $1.03 sales tax. This event is free and open to the public.

“Anything you have read about the Grand Canyon is a lie,” claims local poet Amil Quayle in his new book Grand Canyon and Other Selected Poems. “The experience is inexpressible in words. . .Do not believe them/Go there.” Yet, his book will take you through the Canyon, down the rivers of his Idaho childhood, and across the plains to Nebraska's ranches.

The seventy poems are based on his experiences as a boatman, horseman, professor, artist and traveler. Each explores a relationship in Quayle's life, whether with the Canyon, the water, the land, family, or fellow travelers.

In 1961 Quayle ran his first river trip. He has been hooked ever since. “I am not foolish enough to think that mere words can begin to do justice to the Grand Canyon, and yet I wonder how anyone can experience her splendor without wanting to express it somehow,” Quayle explains. For years he was a full-time guide in the Canyon. Then he sold Quayle Expeditions to ranch. He earned a Ph.D. in English at the University of Nebraska and taught for Utah State University and Idaho State University.

“Stories of Amil always came up,” Dimock recalls, “and his name was always spoken with respect and admiration, with the love for a good man . . . A tribal elder. A name from river lore. . . An instant friend that I knew I could trust, count on, look in the eye, share a story with.”

There are 39 illustrations beginning with the cover photo by Bob Jones of Quayle's son taking the boat through Upset Rapid and ending with Jay Healy's photo series “The Flip,” where the churning water of Lava Falls upsets the boat Quayle is in. Historic pieces from the Grand Canyon National Park Museum Collection are placed with some poems. Family photos and art by Quayle, Tom Meyers, Julie Thomson and Robert Thomson are coupled with others.

Amil Quayle was born near the Henry's Fork of the Snake River in St. Anthony, Idaho, in 1938. As a boy, he and his brother and friends spent many happy hours playing on the banks and in the water of that magnificent stream in southeast Idaho. Through high school he worked on various farms and developed a deep appreciation and love for the land. In 1961, he ran his first river trip and has been hooked ever since. He was a full-time guide, mostly in the Grand Canyon, for many years and earned a B.S. degree in Sociology from the University of Utah. Amil sold his river business and ranched in Nebraska for seven years. He then received an M.A. and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Nebraska and taught English for Utah State University and Idaho State University. But his heart is on the river, and he has been privileged to guide on many trips throughout his adventurous life. His two sons, and two of his grandchildren, are river guides; five other grandchildren are showing river guide potential.