Poetry. "In The Voice of the Borderlands, we have stories remembered as poems, picaresque vignettes and campfire tales rendered in the original voices—as faithfully and fully as by fellow cowman Will James. In LIGHT BEFORE DAWN, we have the koans of mortality faced as quietly and introspectively as Emily Dickinson. Hers: 'I heard a fly buzz when I died.' The fly outlived the protagonist. But the poem, as information, is forever: Drum's—'He knew who he was, And then he was gone.' The poem is a declaration that he knew who he was—which is a rare feat for any sentient being—and the poem—as information, is at the deepest level, immortal. Nice trick for an old cowman, Drum"—James Northrup.