Project MUSE - Earthtones: A Nevada Album by Ann Ronald (review)
Earthtones: A Nevada Album by Ann Ronald (review)
pp. 71-72 |
Reviews Earthtones: A Nevada Album. Text by Ann Ronald and photographs by Stephen Trimble. (Reno: University of Nevada Press,
pages, $39.95.) Earthtones is a delightful book with a serious mission: to refute the stereotype that for too long has characterized Nevada, in John Muir’s unfortunate words, as “singularly barren,” “gray and forbidding and shadeless.” Ann Ronald and Stephen Trimble want nothing less than to teach us to see Nevada anew. To that end, Ronald insists we adopt a desert aesthetic. We must heed Wallace Stegner’s call “to get over the color green,” for only then can we see how “dryness generates beauty of its own.” A respected Edward Abbey scholar and former dean at the University of Nevada, Ronald knows her subject well. She adroitly guides her readers to sites ranging from the well-known and readily accessible—Rhyolite, Valley of Fire—to places she describes vividly but politely refuses to name. Her word-paintings skillfully evoke the color and form of the desert landscape. She describes a rock formation as “almost frothy, like rock-solid meringue”; elsewhere she focuses on the land’s vastness and subtle synesthesia, describing how, in the “immense otherness of a playa” it is “possible to hear nothing at all.” Seeing wild horses in a storm, she notes “the electric beauty of their flight, and the smell of ozone and wet sage.” Stephen Trimble’s photographs range from the subtle to the spectacu- lar. I found particularly striking the images ofthe narrows of Lowell Wash and the cliffs of Cathedral Gorge State Park. A few photos—such as the panoramic view of Jeff Davis Peak—might profitably have been displayed in a larger size, but overall the book’s design is crisp and professional. Earthtones won the Wilbur S. Shepperson Humanities Book Award for 1995, and deservedly so. It will delight readers who already know 72 Western American Literature Nevada well. More important, it extends an irresistible invitation to those who would like to know the state better. DAVID MAZEL University of West Alabama Imagining Home: Writing from the Midwest. Edited by Mark Vinz and Thom Tammaro. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
pages, $19.95.) Editors Vinz and Tammaro cite Growing Up in Minnesota, edited by Chester G. Anderson, as an inspiration for undertaking this project. There is little similarity between the two, however. Growing Up focuses on child- hood narratives, while the mostly upper midwestern writers featured in Imagining Home were asked to explore the influence of “place” on their “development,” which some approached more literally than others. The Anderson volume seems almost programmed for cultural diversity, yet achieves a unified effect. The focus ofImagining Home provides for a much broader range of responses, although its contributors are, for the most part, white and middle class, and these essays reflect that background. Although much of this volume suffers from self-consciousness, several pieces resonate. In “The Roosting Tree,” for instance, Mary Swander explores effectively her conflict between wanderlust and a desire to put down roots. Bill Holm’s provocative “Is Minnesota in AmericaYet?” argues that the vitality of America is linked to the degree that its immigrants remain unassimilated. Carol Bly anatomizes the development of a height- ened class consciousness in “The Maternity Wing, Madison, Minnesota” with sly wit. The editors’goal in presenting this collection to the public is to encour- age readers to explore the influence of place “in their own lives.” This is reflected in the title, which suggests a unifying theme: coming to terms with a particular place as an act of creativity. The essays are grouped under three headings, “Discovering a Home,” by non- “Recovering the Past,” and “The Changing Present.”This arrangement helps improve order, though the head- ings, along with the title and introduction (the most obvious of the editors’ contributions), seem designed to generate “My Hometown” freshman English papers or creative writing class discussions. Readers would do well to approach each essay on its own terms. GORDON JOHNSTON Three Rivers Community College ...
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Restricted AccessProject MUSE - Decompressions: Selected Poems by Philip Whalen, and: Off the Wall: Interviews with Philip Whalen ed. by Donald Allen (review)
Decompressions: Selected Poems by Philip Whalen, and: Off the Wall: Interviews with Philip Whalen ed. by Donald Allen (review)
pp. 85-86 |
Reviews 85 Closely related to Cooper’s perception of the sacred is his perception of Time. To this Axelrad rightly alludes. But, once again, the author is mistaken when he calls Cooper’s perception of historical time cyclical. If Cooper was the Christian conservative Axelrad claims, his perception of time would, by definition, have been strictly linear. These and other incon- sistencies in the book cast doubt on Axelrad’s ability to synthesize. That is not to say the book is not well researched. It is. But Axelrad’s research has not, I believe, led to perceptions of truth or a better understanding of Cooper. In his preface the author rightfully notes that no definitive modem biography of Cooper exists. I would go a step further and say that no definitive book of criticism has been written about Cooper’s work. We sorely need more solid interpretaton of an author whose works have profoundly influenced all of western American literature, but Axelrad has not pro- vided this interpretation. RICHARD C. POULSEN, Brigham Young University Decompressions: Selected Poems. By Philip Whalen. (Bolinas: Four Seasons Foundation, 1978. 85 pages, $3.50.) Off the Wall: Interviews with Philip Whalen. Edited by Donald Allen. Bolinas, California: Four Seasons Foundation, 1978. 88 pages, $3.50.) I mean it’s one of the manifestations of my character. But then, so is my interest in music, and in visionary experiences of various kinds, and in — being me. And, later on, people decided that what I was doing was called “poetry,” but to me, it’s something — just one of the things I do, part of what I see, feel. PW interview with Aram Saroyan Was it Yeats who said we must choose perfection of the life or of the work? Why? Why not have both, like Philip? He wants to live the life of poetry^ of beauty and reality, and so he does. Sometimes it’s had him in a bind or squeeze but he’s always held his ground. Now he’s a Soto Zen monk and seems to have found his final and perfect dress. Monk robes with small square apron. Soto Zen is a largely confratemal corporation dealing and bartering in the ideas of Buddha and offering a way or path to a state of being, original soul-less soul, peace-compassion, wisdom-light, claimed to be eternal (therefore indestructible) and immaculate. The corporate aim is to remain constant (like solar radiation in space) and knowing, while simul- taneously impermanent and ignorant. Perfection of the life looks like perfection of the work, and vice versa. 86 Western American Literature Each of these books has a fine photograph of PW. In the Off the Wall one, he looks like a European friar, in his cups, not very successfully dis- guised as a Zen Buddhist monk. In this photo, on left side, behind potted plant, I see a crucifix of the bloody-ghoulish Mexican kind, on the other side, behind a mysterious smear of light whooshing behind him, a Tibetan tanka of the bloody-ghoulish kind with flayed human skins and offering of dissevered eyeballs, tongues, ears and noses in human skull bowl. The photo with Decompressions shows him ingrown to monk habit, the beautiful expression on his face like he was looking back at us as he approached Event Horizon. I see some white of an inmost garment at neck, then two layers of kimono robe (gray then brown over?) with square apron over solar plexis. Elegant as nature. He’s got beads in hand. Head shaved. So what if you grew up in The Dalles, Oregon, as a Christian Scientist, when you see the light, you go for it, no matter how it bends your self image. What am I waiting for? A change in customs that will take 1000 years to come about: Who’s to make the change but me? His life is his work in progress, as much of it as he gets down on paper anyway, in his fine, italic hand. One humanoid (human-like) word clutch after another. Earthstyle. Direct, precise fitting of word to vision-feeling, like nut (internal female thread) fitting to male bolt and screwing down...
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Restricted AccessProject MUSE - Common Ground by John Daniel (review)
Common Ground by John Daniel (review)
pp. 265-266 |
Reviews Common Ground. By John Daniel. (Lewiston, ID: Confluence Press, Inc. 62 pages, $14.95/$7.95.) “Common ground” isa phrase used by Wendell Berry in hisessay, “Stand- ing by Words.” As a title, it gives the reader an intimation of Daniel’s col- leagues in the literary world and his perspective on poetry. Like Gary Snyder and Wendell Berry, John Daniel is concerned with living in place and with honoring and celebrating the wholeness of creation. If this sounds like a religious endeavor, that’s because it is, though not in the conventional manner. In the poem “Beginnings,” Daniel says: No god broke these billions of stones, or knows where they will be, or what, The poems show an enviable religious sense, a vision for mystery, for a hier- archy that allows man the freedom of humility, and for humor. Daniel knows where he is in the world—at every moment. So, reading Common Ground is like being led by an expert guide into the world that, for many of us, was lost in childhood: —and every damn bubble-throated frog in the meadow is chirping its heart out. Who knows why they sing, but tonight it sounds like celebration, tonight I think the only reason they stop is for the pleasure of starting again. Daniel’s style is as clear as his vision. He has been criticized for lack of technical innovation and for not having enough of the personal in his poems. The reader should cheer instead of criticize. Here is a writer whose personality is a strong presence in his work—without self-centered involvement—with skills as durable and traditional as oak. From “The Great Horned Owl”: In his shed he listens to the barnyard hens he used to terrify. When I open the door he blinks in the flashlight glare and seizes me in his great yellow eyes. Alone with the dark he stirs my gift of cold mice. He does not eat. He was the shadow against the stars, the blur at the edge of my headlights, the ghost who discarded headless sparrows in the dust outside my gate, the voice 266 Western American Literature Wallace Stegner has called Daniel a “poet of the earth,” but this does not mean Common Ground is “nature poetry” in the unfortunate way that phrase has sometimes been understood. Daniel’s power is not in descri it is rather, in knowing, place—whether a vacant lot or a forest. We should all have the gentle courage to look as closely and to respond as sincerely to our surroundings—which speak of the values of our lives—as thiswriter does in his firstbook. ONA SIPORIN Logan, Utah Not Vanishing. By Chrystos. (Vancouver B.C.: Press Gang,
pages, $9.50.) The title of Chrystos’s volume of poetry boldly asserts her presence in the contemporary literary scene. Chrystos’s poems
they are unsettling, often angry pieces that force the reader to walk in uncomfortable places. This is a poet who wants to set us right, to insist we see things as they are. Chrystos challenges our images of the plight ofNative Americans, who “despite what the books say” are not “vanishing” Americans. Her presence is like a floodlight as she everywhere exposes us to the conditions of poverty, the lives of women on the streets of the cities, in the attics and basements of despair. There is an overtly political edge to the poems. In pieces like “Dear Mr. Presi- dent” the tone is urgent, insistent, unrelenting: I am a woman with 3 children a husband who has been out of work for 18 months no place to go I am one of 400 families Emergency Housing has turned away this month The 399 others are no consolation to me This is an emergency Chrystos draws upon her Native American roots in many of the poems, but even then she is fiercely possessive about them. She refuses easy categoriza- tion, and in her introduction makes clear her place: “I am not the Voice of Native Women. . . . I am not a “Spiritual Leader,” although many white women have tried to...
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