Writing

On the Big Rivers, from Three Forks, Montana to New Orleans, Louisiana, by Richard Messer with Jerry Sanders, (Genoa House Press, 2015)

In this new book the reader experiences first and foremost an outdoor adventure, a true life tale of the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of two 23 year olds paddling an 18 foot canoe 3,800 miles down the world’s second longest river system. That they made this voyage in 1962 lends the narrative a fascinating historical dimension. Their journey of initiation and individuation becomes our journey of discovering what this country was like during the early 60s, before the Internet, before ubiquitous bottled water, back when the nearest thing to a cell phone was Dick Tracy’s wrist radio, and Jim Crow was alive and well.

On the upper Missouri the two portage 15 dams and weather many challenges, including losing their canoe for a week. On the Mississippi, having been joined by two other canoeists, they find that the ghosts of Mark Twain’s Huck Finn and Jim still haunt The Father of Waters.

The Missouri portion of the journey challenges and broadens ordinary perspectives on the opening of the West and the Lewis and Clark mission. Passing through Lock 27 and down the Mississippi, the voyagers find themselves more and more caught up in an exploration of  the towns along the river. The perils of civilization are no less than those they have already passed through.

This is a book for those who enjoy history served up in unconventional formats, and it is especially a book for those who love the rivers of this country, boating, and just being on the water.

Purchase from Amazon
Signed Copy on Etsy

“I’m a big fan of Richard Messer’s poety. He has the ability to write movingly about the outer world while underneath he’s also talking about our inner world. It’s a rare gift.” –Robin Robertson, author of Mining the Soul

The Nancy Dasher Award winning book of poems, MURDER IN THE FAMILY.

Available upon request
Excerpt From “Trying to Get Home”
“…All I’m sure of at this moment is that prose may be the arbiter of this life, but poetry is it’s lover.”

A Life on Earth


Excerpt from “Foreign Travels”
“There are long rains, my love that never find the earth.”

Dark Healing

Richard’s latest poetry book, published late 2013.  “These poems, written from lived experience, speak for the survivors of personal violence. The pain inflicted on so many families in our violent age has seldom been faced with such unflinching determination to depict it honestly…”
“Messer travels light. There’ll be no metaphors like that of Antonio Machado, that the poet should leave behind his verses as a captain leaves his sword, famous for the hand that wielded it and not for the skill of the blacksmith who shaped the blade. Nevertheless, Machado’s image is the way of Messer’s poetry. In the end his lines dissolve and a man of flesh and blood remains, sly and gutsy.” Edwin Williams, San Franscisco State University.

Richard is a long time contributor and supporter of Psychological Perspectives.