Anyone who assumes that the biography of a poet is bound to be filled with a list of mundane academic positions and descriptions of a lofty, mostly sedentary lifestyle has not read a biography of James Dickey. This poet was a high school and college football player, a track star atVanderbilt University, a bow hunter, a guitarist, and a fighter pilot in both World War II and the Korean War. He was an advertising copywriter, novelist, actor, and teacher. And, of course, he was a poet—one whose adventurous, often daring, outdoorsman practices provided much fuel for his richly image-laden poems and prose.

James Dickey was born in 1923 in Buckhead, Georgia, a suburb ofAtlanta. He enteredClemson College in 1942 but enlisted in the Army Air Corps before completing his education. After the war, he transferred to Vanderbilt University inNashville, earning his undergraduate degree in 1949 and his master's...