Overwinter

Emerson suggests that ‘genius is the activity that repairs the decay of things.’ Such genius is at work in Pataky’s debut, Overwinter. . . . [It’s] a book that makes of the heart’s affections a myriad world, where presence and absence intertwine, and the poet is no more than faithful recorder of difficulty and wonder. Dan Beachy-Quick, author of a Circle's Apprentice and A Whaler’s Dictionary

In a word, Overwinter is about life. Maybe not everyone's life in entirety, but aspects—small details—are related through the eons-long relationship between man and nature. . . . There is much of this introspection and observation, and while it deals with concerns of Alaskan life there is also something for a broader readership in these poems. There's something for anyone that is willing to still their mind, listen and look. Anchorage Press

Pataky’s debut poetry collection, examines the speaker’s isolation and solace in the vast, untamed nature of the Alaskan wilderness. Throughout the collection, the speaker spends his time between a developed city, with its electricity and human companionship, and the natural Alaskan landscape filled with its braided streams, unpredictable wildlife, and endless illusions of light and depth. NewPages

As a person who grew up geographically close to Alaska, the poems in Overwinter about creeks and valleys, about wood heat and glaciers, as well as those exploring the stranger aspects of the landscape—the fata morgana, the aurora borealis, the lonely feeling of being with other people in isolated places—remind me of home. But Pataky will also bring in those who do not live in the North and make them feel comfortable. Jamella Hagen, Northern Review