Toward Antarctica

*Selected as a Top 10 Must-Read Book About Antarctica by the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators Poet-naturalist Elizabeth Bradfields fourth collection, Toward Antarctica, documents and queries her work as a guide on ships in Antarctica, offering an incisive insiders vision that challenges traditional tropes of The Last Continent. Inspired by haibun, a stylistic form of Japanese poetry invented by 17th-century poet, Matsuo Bash to chronicle his journeys in remote Japan, Bradfield uses photographs, compressed prose, and short poems to examine our relationship to remoteness, discovery, expertise, awe, labor, temporary societies, pure landscapes, and tourisms service economy. Antarctica was the focus of Bradfields Approaching Ice, written before she had set foot on the continent; now Toward Antarctica furthers her investigation with boots on the ground. A complicated love letter, Toward Antarctica offers a unique view of one of the worlds most iconic wild places.