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By Simmons Buntin, October 20, 2009 4:44 am

Over the years, Terrain.org has featured several long poems from Ohio poet Robert Lietz, a poet whose work seemed to embrace the idea of hypertext even before HTML came onto the literary scene (or, perhaps more appropriately, before literature came onto the HTML scene).

“Practicing Down,” a 9-part poem, appeared in our second issue. Here is the first part:

Practicing Down

Practicing Down (1)

Once, I think, for good. Then the story-line divides.
Too many clouds. Too many pieces to see fit. And
then the day builds over us — stretched /skewed /strung –
the intimacies restored to all of their hard uses.
And more — as the moonlight frays — in the births
and star-crossed weddings Time conspires — more
as the story-lines divide — the frogs and the strung birds
vanishing — and the ghosts of husbands
target-shooting in “the Swedes” — finding their ways
by heart /and by the heart of her instructing.

I think of the counter and caught breath — phlegm
cleared to tell — of that cold cold well
and chiarascuro deepening — of two in Alaskan light — coaxed
to the evening’s violet hues and primaries –
and two — and we — there where the waters rose –
where the woes flared plausibly and healed –
coaxed by interiors to forms and by the hard play of desire –
practicing down /down — stroked by the shade
and light and stories she would sieze on — blind –
or blind almost — bored as she was by weeks and weeks
of library recordings.

I think how the wind-lifted late-winter limbs lift over them.
And over the dreams we’re drawn to — and
then — in an instant — gone — and then — in an instant –
finished with — alive in this knowledge visiting.
I think of the cold and costs of living alone and centermost –
a chamber as still as love and children in good favor —
considering that slipped deliberated shell — and — troubles
enough /God knows — and then — in that instant –
gone — conceding this much to lungs to finally concentrate –
practicing down /down — given these first
cold rains and end of season freezes.

And more — as the light /the vibrancies /the story-lines
spin down — over the macabre carpeting — stroked
to another poetry — stroked by this cold
/cold hand I brought my own to trembling — remembering
the light-gathering /light-lettered consequence –
the terrible and compounding valentines — that troubled
but hard resilience in so many plastic things –
and — once — I think — for good — given
that colt-quick and icy siring — instructing love
/inviting love in as accomplice.

~~~

Read the full poem at http://www.terrain.org/poetry/2/lietz.htm.

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By Simmons Buntin, October 15, 2009 7:08 pm

R. T. Smith. Photo courtesy University of Arkansas Press.

Beginning with this entry, we plan to post a poem from Terrain.org’s archives once or twice a week.  Let’s start with a poem from our first issue, which launched in the summer of 1998:
 

Patois

by R. T. Smith
 

Haze in the orchard
white as a harp’s voice.
Each word has fluent
roots, and we love
to believe in the way
syllables flower, how
each noise arises
from the Latin, Saxon,
African and Norse,
the manner of wood
forming, sleek apples
like hearts or a legion
of lance-pointed leaves.
Formal, the marriage
of blossom to blossom,
the priest bee transforming
pollen.  From each branch
a single soloist stepping
forth from the chorus,
a bird sowing melody,
quick weft threading
the orchard’s warp,
one verb in its slow arc
entering the soil,
smooth as a seed.

~~~

View this poem and R. T. Smith’s poem ”Grackle” in the original issue at http://www.terrain.org/poetry/1/smith.htm.

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By Simmons Buntin, October 12, 2009 5:30 pm

New Haven Green in New Haven, Connecticut

The American Planning Association has just released its list of Great Places in America for 2009.  The organization’s flagship program celebrates places of exemplary character, quality, and planning. Places are selected annually and represent the “gold standard” in terms of having a true sense of place, cultural and historical interest, community involvement, and a vision for tomorrow.

APA Great Places offer better choices for where and how people work and live. They are enjoyable, safe, and desirable. They are places where people want to be — not only to visit, but to live and work every day. America’s truly great streets, neighborhoods and public spaces are defined by many criteria, including architectural features, accessibility, functionality, and community involvement.

The Great Places are divided into three categories:

• Great Neighborhoods
• Great Streets
• Great Public Spaces

Great neighborhoods include Bungalow Heaven in Pasadena, the Haymarket in Lincoln, Nebraska, and Downtown Franklin Historic District in Tennessee, among others. Great streets include Broadway Street in Skagway, Alaska, Front Street in Traverse City, Michigan, and East Newberry Boulevard in Milwaukee, among others. And great public spaces include New Haven Green in New Haven, Connecticut, the Great Rounds in Minneapolis, and the Central Square in Keene, New Hampshire, among others.

There are many lists of great places to live and the like, and APA’s Great Places in America is at the top of the list of those to read (and be sure to view the short slideshows for each place, as well).

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By Simmons Buntin, October 10, 2009 4:42 am

The editors of Terrain.org are pleased to announce the following nominations for Dzanc Book’s 2010 Best of the Web anthology:

Poetry – “A Short History of Falling” by Pamela Uschuk

Nonfiction - “Positioning” by J. David Bell

Nonfiction - “Lee’s Ferry” by Ben Quick

Congratulations to these authors and all of the wonderful contributors to the new issue of Terrain.org.

And look for our 2010 Puschart Prize nominations to be announced soon, as well.

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By Simmons Buntin, October 6, 2009 6:38 am

Evidence: Poems, by Mary Oliver
Beacon Press, 2009

From the book jacket:

Inspired by the familiar lines from William Wordsworth, “To me the meanest flower that blows can give / Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears,” Evidence is a collection of 47 new poems on all of Mary Oliver’s classic themes. She writes perceptively about grief and mortality, love and nature, and the spiritual sustenance she draws from their gifts.

Ever grateful for the bounty that is offered to us daily by the natural world, Oliver is attentive to the mysteries it imparts. The arresting beauty she finds in rivers and stones, willows and field corn, the mockingbird’s “embellishments” or the last hours of darkness permeates her poems. Her newest volume is imbued through and through with that power of nature to, in Oliver’s words, “excite the viewers toward sublime thought.”

A Note from Terrain.org’s Editor

I’ve long been a fan of Mary Oliver, beginning with the Pulitzer Prize-winning American Primitive, which I consider one of the most influential volumes of American poetry, and one of the best. I picked it up while perusing poetry collections at the Boulder Bookstore, early in my own writing career. Since then, Oliver — along with A.R. Ammons — is the poet I’ve turned to the most for the pure joy of reading her poetry, for inspiring my own, and for sharing.

But I admit I received her newest collection with some apprehension, because I’ve been mostly  disappointed in her newest work. While many of the poems are still wonderful, I’ve sensed a decline in her work — as well as a reliance on a formula that worked so well in her first several books but now feels, well, formulaic.

My take, then, on Evidence? I think it is her strongest book in quite some time. No doubt several of the poems work even as they fall into that predictable formula. But I find the most pleasure in the longer poems of the collection, most notably “To Begin With, the Sweet Grass,” the title poem, and “At the River Clarion.” Oliver seems to be expanding her notable repertoire here, and doing so in new, skillful, and exciting ways. To that I say: bravo — Mary Oliver is back!

Evidence is a must-have for any Oliver fan, of course. But I think it is also an essential book for any lover of poetry. It is wide-ranging in form, relentless in its questioning: searing, aspiring, lovely.

About Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver, winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, was recently awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Tufts University. Her 18 previous books of poetry include The Truro Bear and Other Adventures, Red Bird, and New and Selected Poems, Volume One and Volume Two. She lives in Privincetown, Massachusetts.

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By Simmons Buntin, October 5, 2009 4:59 am

On Thursday, September 24th, Terrain.org held its first-ever public issue launch and reading, celebrating Issue No. 24, “Borders and Bridges” with readings by David Rothenberg, Pamela Uschuk, Christopher Cokinos, and Deborah Fries at the University of Arizona Poetry Center.

We’ve just added an image gallery and mp3 of the full reading at the new Terrain.org Events section of the website.

We had a great turnout, and thank the Poetry Center and Center for Biological Diversity for sponsoring the event, the readers for such wonderful performances, and the audience. View the image gallery and listen to the full performance now.

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By Simmons Buntin, October 4, 2009 4:53 am

New Report Identifies Top Threats and Recommendations to Protect Parks

Winter clouds over Saguaro National Park east of Tucson. Photo by Simmons Buntin.

11 Climate-Related Dangers in Parks in AK, AZ, CA, CO, FL, ID, IN, MD, MT, NJ, NY, ME, NV, NM, NC, ND, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA, and WY.

Editor’s note: Video is available at: http://www.vimeo.com/nrdcbroadcast/videos

Denver and New York (October 1, 2009) — Climate change from human activity is the leading threat to wildlife, plants, water and ice in 25 of America’s national parks, according to a new report by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Rocky Mountain Climate Organization (RMCO).

The report, National Parks in Peril, comes on the heels of the introduction of clean energy and climate legislation in the U.S. Senate, as well as Ken Burns’ national parks series on PBS, which has put parks in the center of America’s national conscience.

The RMCO/NRDC report outlines 11 climate-related threats and the needed remedies for the following national parks (in alphabetical order):  Acadia National Park; Assateague Island National Seashore; Bandelier National Monument; Biscayne National Park; Cape Hatteras National Seashore; Colonial National Historical Park; Denali National Park and Preserve; Dry Tortugas National Park; Ellis Island National Monument; Everglades National Park; Glacier National Park; Great Smoky Mountains National Park; Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore; Joshua Tree National Park; Lake Mead National Recreation Area; Mesa Verde National Park; Mount Rainier National Park; Padre Island National Seashore; Rocky Mountain National Park; Saguaro National Park; Theodore Roosevelt National Park; Virgin Islands National Park/Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument; Yellowstone National Park;Yosemite National Park; and Zion National Park.

“As a country, we need to ensure that our parks have a future that is as promising as their past,” said Theo Spencer, senior advocate for the Climate Center at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Clean energy legislation is now moving in Congress that would help preserve our national treasures, while creating more jobs, economic growth and national security.”

The report outlines climate-related threats in 25 parks spanning 22 states. The top risks include: loss of snow and water, rising seas, more extreme weather, loss of plants and wildlife, and more pollution.

“Climate disruption is the greatest threat ever to our national parks. We could lose entire national parks for the first time, as Everglades, Ellis Island, and other parks could be submerged by rising seas,” said Stephen Saunders, president of the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and the report’s principal author. “To preserve our parks, we need to reduce the heat-trapping gases that are threatening them, and begin managing the parks to protect resources at risk.”   

Remedies, which are outlined in the report, include enacting comprehensive clean energy legislation, including reducing carbon pollution by at least 20 percent below current levels by 2020; increasing investment in energy efficiency; and accelerating the development of clean energy technologies. The National Parks Service also needs to prioritize this issue by enacting policies to mitigate the impacts of global warming; and should have more funding for research and to reduce the effects of climate change.

Bill Wade, chair of the executive council of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees (CNPSR) and former superintendent of Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, said: “National parks are often referred to as the ‘canaries in the mine shafts’ when it comes to climate change. By their very characteristics and locations, impacts and effects of climate change are noticed in national parks first and are a forewarning about what will happen elsewhere. That’s why this report is particularly important.”

For the full report, including the list of the National Parks, go to:  www.rockymountainclimate.org

The report and more information about national parks and global warming is also at: http://www.nrdc.org/land/parksinperil/