Marvin Bell’s nineteenth book was the wartime collection, Mars Being Red (2007). His twentieth is 7 Poets, 4 Days, 1 Book, a collaboration of seven poets from five countries. Long a member of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop faculty, he teaches now for the brief-residency MFA program based in Oregon at Pacific University. The first incarnation of Bell’s The Book of the Dead Man appeared in 1994 (Copper Canyon). A second volume, Ardor, was published in 1997. “About the Dead Man and the Northwest” is from a new, forthcoming collection of “Dead Man” poems. Look for more of Marvin Bell’s poems in Poetry Northwest in the months ahead. ◊ The Book of the Dead Man (The Northwest) +++ Live as if you were already dead. +++ Zen admonition +++ And the fish swim in the lake / and do not even own clothing. +++ Ezra Pound, “Salutation” 1. About the Dead Man and the Northwest Picture the dead man in two rooms in the northwest corner of his being. In the one, it is day, and in the …