Last Resort is a collection of poems that examines the role of the changing self in relationship to others and to the natural environment. Grounded in Midwestern landscapes, the poems combine experiences of childhood and early adulthood to explore themes of discovery and transience. Between two sections of confessional poems is a multi-genre series that documents Iowa's changing landscape and narrates the history of the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory field station. This middle section blends historical fact and imaginative speculation to illuminate the lives of early Iowa naturalists Samuel Calvin, Thomas Macbride, and Bohumil Shimek.