John Burgess first intersected with the Lewis & Clark Trail at Three Forks in 1978 when working as the third man on a three-man survey crew in the Gallatin Valley of Montana. Since then, he has read the complete Journals of Lewis & Clark explored major sites they encountered along the trail from St. Louis to Fort Mandan and from Fort Clatsop to Lolo Pass.

“by Land…”, his fourth collection from Ravenna Press, and by far his most expansive, follows a narrative arc based on his intersections with the historic trail. The work is a collage of poems, handwritten lists, typewriter poems, cartoons (aka graphic poems), a memoir  in 10 fragments, maps and reassembled texts that riff on the Journals.