The Birchbark House

Louise Erdrich’s young adult novel, The Birchbark House, is a poignant portrayal of Omakayas, a young  Ojibwe girl early in the 19th century.  The setting may be far different from the young girls of today, but the struggles of sisterly jealousy, irritations of a little brother , and the drudgery of chores, represent any era.

Beautifully written with a compelling story arc, Erdrich brings to life the island that the family lives on, just north of modern day Duluth, Minnesota.  She weaves Native American tradition through the everyday challenges of a three generation household, as well as, the life-and-death experiences of  the unseen viruses brought by the whites, and which her people are powerless against.

Erdrich leaves the reader with simple, but unforgettable scenes as Omakayas discovers her talents, her love for her family, and her true place in the heritage of her Native American ancestors.

A Wind-Storm in the Forest by John Muir

I wonder if I could actually climb a tree as a 47 year old woman.  This summer I’ll give it a try.

“The winds go to every tree, fingering every leaf and branch…not one is forgotten…caressing them tenderly…whispering and cooing through the branches like a sleepy child; now roaring like the ocean…”

In the short story, “Wind-Storm,” John Muir scaled a 100 foot Douglas Spruce in order to experience a wind storm in the Sierra.  Not content to experience it within the confines of cabin walls, he says, “Nature has always something rare to show us, and the danger to life and limb is hardly greater than one would experience crouching deprecatingly beneath a roof.”

There are innumerable passages from “Wind-Storm” one could quote that express the exuberance of Muir’s experience and physically touched my soul.  Mr. Muir is most assuredly one of the authors I will bring with me to the mountains of Colorado this June.  “Colossal spires 200 feet in height waved like supple goldenrods chanting and bowing low as if in worship.”  I strive to write like that.  Our natural world has been ignored for too long and I am thankful that I have been blessed with the ability to appreciate the wonders of Nature.

“Nature was holding high festival, and every fiber of the most rigid giants thrilled with glad excitement.”  “The fragrance of the woods was less marked than that produced during warm rain, when so many balsamic buds and leaves are steeped like tea.” Poetic prose.  I am speechless.  What more can be said…

The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber

I recently rediscovered Ernest Hemingway’s short story of a cuckolded Englishman on Safari in Africa.  The three characters, Francis Macomber, his wife, Margaret, and their guide, Robert Wilson, create a complex triangle of love, hate, lust, fear, disgust, and unflinching betrayal.

I continue to be humbled by Hemingway’s ability to generate emotions in his reader not by what he writes, but by what he doesn’t write.  His omissions force the reader to delve more deeply into the words he does use, and opens a plethora of possibilities for his character’s ulterior motives.

Perhaps I am partial to this story because it was my introduction to Hemingway many years ago by my literature professor, Joseph Plut.  Both he and Hemingway have left an indelible impression on me that led me to many of the decisions I made for my future. For that I am grateful.

The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber is filled with ulterior motives, ruthlessness, and sickening human responses.  It is a stark portrayal of human interaction juxtaposed with the wild beauty of Africa, and punctuated with a surprisingly shocking ending.

Dogsong, by Gary Paulsen

I didn’t get the opportunity to read Gary Paulsen’s young adult novels when they were published, as I had already passed my time as a young adult.  I recently, however, read several of Paulsen’s novels because my younger classmates had read them and raved about his books, particularly Hatchet. 

Gary Paulsen gained literary success with the publication of Hatchet.  It changed his life as a writer, as well as his way of life.  Although I enjoyed Hatchet, I fell in love with an earlier novel, Dogsong.  Paulsen’s novel is about a young Eskimo boy who forsakes snow machines and modern ways, to learn from Oogruk, an Eskimo elder, the old ways of sled dogs and living off the land.  The last Eskimo in his village to still have a dogsled team and practice the ancient ways, Oogruk takes young Russel into his home, teaching him the ancient songs and guiding Russel on his search to discover his own “song.”

Oogruk and Russel prefer to eat their meat raw, do not like the noise of snow machines, and believe in the importance of keeping Eskimo traditions alive.  Paulsen’s Oogruk doesn’t inundate Russel with the wealth of knowledge he has, but shares just enough information for Russel to begin his own journey and discover the rest of his song on his own. 

Northern Alaska is a harsh place, and Paulsen’s descriptions of the environment convince the reader of his first-hand knowledge of surviving a brutal Alaskan winter.

Beautifully written and stark in dialogue, Dogsong stayed with me long after I closed the book.  Although I arrived late to the appreciation of Gary Paulsen, he remains a relevant young adult author for any age.

Poetry Anthology

I believe I have found a way to better understand poetry:  Listen to it.

I have always loved poetry.  I’ve always appreciated the rythms and pulsations of the tortured author painstakingly, carefully, choosing every word on the page.

Lately, however, I’ve had some difficulty understanding new poetry so I took my colleagues advice and began listening to the poems.  Voila!  I love it.

I listened to Grandpa Walton (Will Greer) read Pioneers! O Pioneers! and I was carried away to the plains of the Midwest.  I felt the unrelenting wind of the Nebraska plains on my face and the hard ground beneath my bedroll.  I haven’t read this poem in years and this is the first time I really listened to it, and it was magical.

Here are a few of my recommendations.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.

Robert Herrick’s To Virgins, Make Much of Time

Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven

Maya Angelou, On The Pulse of Morning

“The Ecology of Magic”

David Abram wears many hats.  He is an ecologist, philosopher, linguist, and professional sleight-of-hand magician.  Wait. What? A Magician?

His story, “The Ecology of Magic,” is a study of the relationship between folk medicine and magic.  While in Southeast Asia, Abram became “increasingly aware of his own culture’s alienation from the natural world, (Norton Book of Nature Writing).

A central theme of “The Ecology of Magic,” discusses Abram’s belief that immediate, sensory knowledge has been replaced with linguistic thought.  He states that many of our spiritual ideas derive from direct physical experience with the natural world.  Abrams believes we must, “write our senses back into the land,” (Nature).

Discussing how American culture has removed itself from Nature, he investigates the shaman’s ability to slip out of “perceptual boundaries,” and reconnect to “the other powers in the land,” (Nature).

As an example, he tells of a daily offering made by the wife of a balian, (a young magic practitioner in Bali).  Each morning she placed small woven of palm frond bowls, filled with rice, at the corner of each building.  These were in honor of the, “household spirits,” (Nature).  At the end of each day the bowls were empty and the spirits allegedly appeased.

Upon closer inspection, Abram discovered that the family’s compound was built upon a massive ant colony and each individual grain of rice was painstakingly carried away each day by ants.  This was in the hopes that the ants would be satisfied and would not enter the buildings.  Magic?  Spirits? It depends on how one believes, but the ‘spririts’ were, in fact, appeased.

Abrams’ point is that we must allow ourselves to sense Nature again.   We are nourished by the Earth and we return to it when we die.  We are, “Caught up in a mass of abstractions, our attention hypnotized by a host of man-made technologies that only reflect us back to ourselves,” (Nature).  We can no longer afford to shut ourselves off from the other voices of our Natural world.  We must realize our place within the circle of creation, and not above it.

“Little Wet Monster”

Chad Sweeney’s poem, “Little Wet Monster,” published in the Pushcart Prize XXXVI, was written to Liam, Sweeney’s as of yet unborn son.  Sweeney writes of places in nature, of lightness and dark, of the fear and exhilaration of becoming a father.  To hear the author read his poem is an experience in itself.  He reads with intense emotion and an urgency familiar to any parent.

Nine months can seem like forever, or it can pass in an instant.  Sweeney oscillates between the fear of fatherhood and the anticipation of waiting for his child to be born.  ”Come darkling soon, come woe my monster,” reflects Sweeney’s yearning for the arrival of his child from the dark, warm womb of its mother.  In the poem the author coaxes his child to “Come whole my homeward early.”  My favorite line combines alliteration with deliciously spoken words:  ”Before the bloodtrees bramble over/Come low my rainweed monster.”

“Little Wet Monster” is initially a complex poem, but much like a new parent, ultimately layered with love, fear, anticipation, and sheer joy.