He is a peripatetic writer, according to one observer:
His vest pocket reminds one of a series of pipe organs because of the number of huge fountain pens he carries—all filled. For Mr. Wood has the ability to write wherever he may be: on street cars; standing in a queue before a ticket window; waiting for the doctor, the dentist; in between trains, in hotel lobbies. Every little odd minute of the day is scribbled over with ink.
Verne Bright, in an article in the Northwest Literary Review, has summed him up—“Pioneer, soldier, lawyer; humanitarian, iconoclast, poet: such are the six sides to the man.” A semicolon divides the objective from the subjective, with three classifications under each.
Following are the first 57 lines from the Prologue to The Poet in the Desert, published in 1915 when he was 63:
“Behold the Signs of the Desert”
Poet:
The Desert confronts me haughtily and assails me with solitude.
She sits on a throne of light,
Her hands clasped, her eyes solemnly questioning.
I have come into the lean and stricken land
Which fears not God, that I may meet my soul
Face to face, naked as the Desert is naked;
Bare as the great silence is bare:
And the great host which shall come after,
By whom I also shall be forgot.
