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Sisters of the Earth: Women's Prose and Poetry About Nature
Sisters of the Earth is a stirring collection of women’s writing on nature: Nature as healer. Nature as delight. Nature as mother and sister. Nature as victim. Nature as companion and reminder of what is wild in us all. Here, among more than a hundred poets and prose writers, are Diane Ackerman on the opium of sunsets; Ursula K. Le Guin envisioning an alternative world in which human beings are not estranged from their planet; and Julia Butterfly Hill on weathering a fierce storm in the redwood tree where she lived for more than two years. Here, too, are poems, essays, stories, and journal entries by Emily Dickinson, Alice Walker, Terry Tempest Williams, Willa Cather, Gretel Erlich, Adrienne Rich, and others—each offering a vivid, eloquent response to the natural world.
This second edition of Sisters of the Earth is fully revised and updated with a new preface and nearly fifty new pieces, including new contributions by Louise Erdrich, Pam Houston, Zora Neale Hurston, Starhawk, Joy Williams, Kathleen Norris, Rita Dove, and Barbara Kingsolver.
This second edition of Sisters of the Earth is fully revised and updated with a new preface and nearly fifty new pieces, including new contributions by Louise Erdrich, Pam Houston, Zora Neale Hurston, Starhawk, Joy Williams, Kathleen Norris, Rita Dove, and Barbara Kingsolver.
496 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
76 people are currently reading
1427 people want to read
About the author
Lorraine Anderson
40 books12 followersLorraine Anderson is a freelance writer, editor, and teacher whose work focuses on encouraging a way of life in tune with nature.
She is the editor of Sisters of the Earth: Women’s Prose and Poetry About Nature and other works on nature.
She lives in Corvallis, OR.
(from http://www.whitecloudpress.com/author...)
She is the editor of Sisters of the Earth: Women’s Prose and Poetry About Nature and other works on nature.
She lives in Corvallis, OR.
(from http://www.whitecloudpress.com/author...)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
March 25, 2021
“The stiller she is, the more everything moves
In the immense vocabulary of being.” Margaret Hasse
“In this feverish and high-strung age we need desperately quiet and naturalness and sanity. And there is something in this contact with earthly things, whether it’s a passion for birds or gardening or camping, which is restoring and health-giving and wholesome…” Theodora Stanwell-Fletcher, 1951
I have to confess, for many years I have avoided women’s writing about nature, despite the most consequential book of my life being written by a woman, Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Ironically, both she and Mary Oliver declined to be collected in any single gender anthology, so they are not here. While I really do applaud women’s attempt to write of a goddess, to redeem from the patriarchy and domineering male viewpoint, I am not a fan of the imagery of the goddess and nature as feminine. I see it as part of myself, as deep connection, as visual poetry, as where we stand and walk and be on, as part of being. So I gave up but recently got really annoyed that many of my favorite words about nature are written by men and needed to return and explore and find more women’s voices to balance it out. This is a near perfect anthology of more than just worshipping the goddess, so hit a lot of high notes, or deep chords. Lots of indigenous and BIPOC voices, so I really appreciate that.
“The writing in this book gives us a vocabulary and a way of seeing. But ultimately, with these words resonating in our consciousness, we must turn to the book of nature itself. It matters how we think about and touch this place during our brief and precious time in the world…it can come to reside in us as surely as we reside in it.” Lorraine Anderson
I can’t possibly include all the gems found and adding quotes to an anthology looks like the editor wrote them so they are awkward; I will add by the author if possible, and place the anthology name in the quote so you should be able to search by that. I haven’t done a found poem in a while, so I will muse a little and then gift it to the world. The themes that always catch my attention are ones of awe, of feeling deeply one with the earth but also of breathlessness, where poetry is implied and capture, often unintentionally. Not too long ago, I spoke to a friend about forest bathing and sort of awkwardly laughed about actually hugging trees; I touch them, leaves, cones, flowers, but actually hugging seemed a little too far, and she said she did hug them because there is connection the skin feels and it is a way of showing reverence. I still haven’t done it, bust just may. Being with them is often enough, whether there is proof that ions and electrons and phytoncides that are beneficial or not, and I think this anthology captured my worldview so beautifully. There were some that didn’t’ speak to me, but I also think in a reread, they might.
“There was a time in our culture, not long ago, when the essential role of men and women was to nurture and protect each other, to be caretakers of life and earth. At that time, when the sun sparkled on the sea of our imagination as freshly as it sparkled on the sea itself, we thought of our world and each other in ways that were life-venerating and death-respecting. The porpoise school that weaves its history protectively around its common existence, the whales that tune body and mind in a continuous awareness of life, are not symbols of an alien mythology- they are evocative of what was once the core of human relationships.” Joan McIntyre
I felt the span of lifetimes in some of the older selections from the late 1800s and early 1900’s. We always dream that life was so much simpler then without cell phones and facebook, but I think there is a busy or frantic gene in humans that make us consumers no matter what the consumed. These women wrote about walking, fresh air, weather, soul, spirit, strength and they stretch across time to teach us something we have lost; it is up to us to seek their words and try to listen and learn. This book could save the world, or the humans on the earth; the earth will endure without us.
“Some of my pleasantest rambles have been over these hills. One is hardly content to walk over them. The pure, bracing air, the open sky, give to us such a sense of freedom and relief that we want to bound along, like merry, light-hearted children. And here I have seen and felt the glorious, wondrous ever-changing beauty of the clouds, watching them for hours, until I have been tempted to think them the grandest and most beautiful of all God’s grand and beautiful works.”
Charlotte Forten Grimke, 1858, fifth generation descendant of an African slave, Glimpses of New England
FOUND POEM by Cheryl
The earth can bear man lightly if we learn its soul;
if the dams are dynamited and free-flowing rivers
restored, for example. When lumbermen cut
an ancient forest, another like it will not grow
in my lifetime, or my grandchildren’s. When the last
member of a species dies in a zoo, it is gone forever.
But a river has the power to forgive. To breach
a dam is to admit mistakes, and so to release the
power of the river to heal itself, to begin
to heal the rift between human and nature.
There are laws above our human laws, and ways
above ours. We have no words for this in our
language, or even our experience of being there.
The prophecies have said that when the heart and
The intellect come together and balance, the new age
will begin. It has only been a couple hundred years
since that coming together and we are all
becoming natives here. Perhaps someday humans
will find their humanity and give up their divinity.
This is the prayer I sing, for we have forgotten
this and so the earth is perishing.
The best world is the body’s world
And how I longed to live on this earth
Walking her boundaries. You are soaked,
submerged, immersed; full to the brim
with beauty. For here the landscape
is eloquent of the interplay of forces
that have created it. Intermediaries
between the sun and earth, they nurture
the living and their strong roots promise
resurrection transforming dirt into
atmosphere, into us.
Let nature’s breath breathe into your lungs the healing
of her own. To be fully inside the looking moment is to
be fully in your true self. I go out into the sunshine to sit
receptively for what there is in the stillness calm. I am keenly
aware that there is something. Just now it seemed to flow
in a rhythm around me and then to enter me-something
that comes in a hushed inflowing. Become a mere receptacle
for heat, or become a color, and in the rapid, restless heart
of the river, flowing swifter than the rest, there is a continuity
of life that reached back into ancient times.
Beyond the walls and solid roofs of houses is the outdoors.
The sky, serene, or piled with white, slow-moving clouds,
or full of wind and purple storm, is always overhead. But walls
will assert themselves and domineer. They insist on the unique
importance of the contents of walls and would have you believe
the spaces above them, the slow processions of the seasons
and the alternations of sunshine and rain, are accessories,
pleasant or unpleasant, of walls. Wildness has no conditions,
no sure routes, no peaks or goals, no source that is not instantly
becoming more than itself, then letting go of that, always becoming.
For what else
might happiness
be than to be porous,
opened, rinsed through
by the beings and things?
When I came to myself,
I was standing a-tiptoe
gazing up after it,
my breath coming in gasps,
this full life my spirit asks!
I’m convinced that
there is something
we once knew
which has been lost
to us in the evolutionary
process. Sometimes
we get glimpses of it.
Being alone
I could not be alone…
My happiness ran
through the centuries
And linked itself
to other happiness.
In the immense vocabulary of being.” Margaret Hasse
“In this feverish and high-strung age we need desperately quiet and naturalness and sanity. And there is something in this contact with earthly things, whether it’s a passion for birds or gardening or camping, which is restoring and health-giving and wholesome…” Theodora Stanwell-Fletcher, 1951
I have to confess, for many years I have avoided women’s writing about nature, despite the most consequential book of my life being written by a woman, Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Ironically, both she and Mary Oliver declined to be collected in any single gender anthology, so they are not here. While I really do applaud women’s attempt to write of a goddess, to redeem from the patriarchy and domineering male viewpoint, I am not a fan of the imagery of the goddess and nature as feminine. I see it as part of myself, as deep connection, as visual poetry, as where we stand and walk and be on, as part of being. So I gave up but recently got really annoyed that many of my favorite words about nature are written by men and needed to return and explore and find more women’s voices to balance it out. This is a near perfect anthology of more than just worshipping the goddess, so hit a lot of high notes, or deep chords. Lots of indigenous and BIPOC voices, so I really appreciate that.
“The writing in this book gives us a vocabulary and a way of seeing. But ultimately, with these words resonating in our consciousness, we must turn to the book of nature itself. It matters how we think about and touch this place during our brief and precious time in the world…it can come to reside in us as surely as we reside in it.” Lorraine Anderson
I can’t possibly include all the gems found and adding quotes to an anthology looks like the editor wrote them so they are awkward; I will add by the author if possible, and place the anthology name in the quote so you should be able to search by that. I haven’t done a found poem in a while, so I will muse a little and then gift it to the world. The themes that always catch my attention are ones of awe, of feeling deeply one with the earth but also of breathlessness, where poetry is implied and capture, often unintentionally. Not too long ago, I spoke to a friend about forest bathing and sort of awkwardly laughed about actually hugging trees; I touch them, leaves, cones, flowers, but actually hugging seemed a little too far, and she said she did hug them because there is connection the skin feels and it is a way of showing reverence. I still haven’t done it, bust just may. Being with them is often enough, whether there is proof that ions and electrons and phytoncides that are beneficial or not, and I think this anthology captured my worldview so beautifully. There were some that didn’t’ speak to me, but I also think in a reread, they might.
“There was a time in our culture, not long ago, when the essential role of men and women was to nurture and protect each other, to be caretakers of life and earth. At that time, when the sun sparkled on the sea of our imagination as freshly as it sparkled on the sea itself, we thought of our world and each other in ways that were life-venerating and death-respecting. The porpoise school that weaves its history protectively around its common existence, the whales that tune body and mind in a continuous awareness of life, are not symbols of an alien mythology- they are evocative of what was once the core of human relationships.” Joan McIntyre
I felt the span of lifetimes in some of the older selections from the late 1800s and early 1900’s. We always dream that life was so much simpler then without cell phones and facebook, but I think there is a busy or frantic gene in humans that make us consumers no matter what the consumed. These women wrote about walking, fresh air, weather, soul, spirit, strength and they stretch across time to teach us something we have lost; it is up to us to seek their words and try to listen and learn. This book could save the world, or the humans on the earth; the earth will endure without us.
“Some of my pleasantest rambles have been over these hills. One is hardly content to walk over them. The pure, bracing air, the open sky, give to us such a sense of freedom and relief that we want to bound along, like merry, light-hearted children. And here I have seen and felt the glorious, wondrous ever-changing beauty of the clouds, watching them for hours, until I have been tempted to think them the grandest and most beautiful of all God’s grand and beautiful works.”
Charlotte Forten Grimke, 1858, fifth generation descendant of an African slave, Glimpses of New England
FOUND POEM by Cheryl
The earth can bear man lightly if we learn its soul;
if the dams are dynamited and free-flowing rivers
restored, for example. When lumbermen cut
an ancient forest, another like it will not grow
in my lifetime, or my grandchildren’s. When the last
member of a species dies in a zoo, it is gone forever.
But a river has the power to forgive. To breach
a dam is to admit mistakes, and so to release the
power of the river to heal itself, to begin
to heal the rift between human and nature.
There are laws above our human laws, and ways
above ours. We have no words for this in our
language, or even our experience of being there.
The prophecies have said that when the heart and
The intellect come together and balance, the new age
will begin. It has only been a couple hundred years
since that coming together and we are all
becoming natives here. Perhaps someday humans
will find their humanity and give up their divinity.
This is the prayer I sing, for we have forgotten
this and so the earth is perishing.
The best world is the body’s world
And how I longed to live on this earth
Walking her boundaries. You are soaked,
submerged, immersed; full to the brim
with beauty. For here the landscape
is eloquent of the interplay of forces
that have created it. Intermediaries
between the sun and earth, they nurture
the living and their strong roots promise
resurrection transforming dirt into
atmosphere, into us.
Let nature’s breath breathe into your lungs the healing
of her own. To be fully inside the looking moment is to
be fully in your true self. I go out into the sunshine to sit
receptively for what there is in the stillness calm. I am keenly
aware that there is something. Just now it seemed to flow
in a rhythm around me and then to enter me-something
that comes in a hushed inflowing. Become a mere receptacle
for heat, or become a color, and in the rapid, restless heart
of the river, flowing swifter than the rest, there is a continuity
of life that reached back into ancient times.
Beyond the walls and solid roofs of houses is the outdoors.
The sky, serene, or piled with white, slow-moving clouds,
or full of wind and purple storm, is always overhead. But walls
will assert themselves and domineer. They insist on the unique
importance of the contents of walls and would have you believe
the spaces above them, the slow processions of the seasons
and the alternations of sunshine and rain, are accessories,
pleasant or unpleasant, of walls. Wildness has no conditions,
no sure routes, no peaks or goals, no source that is not instantly
becoming more than itself, then letting go of that, always becoming.
For what else
might happiness
be than to be porous,
opened, rinsed through
by the beings and things?
When I came to myself,
I was standing a-tiptoe
gazing up after it,
my breath coming in gasps,
this full life my spirit asks!
I’m convinced that
there is something
we once knew
which has been lost
to us in the evolutionary
process. Sometimes
we get glimpses of it.
Being alone
I could not be alone…
My happiness ran
through the centuries
And linked itself
to other happiness.
June 9, 2018
Beautiful collection that introduced me to many to authors!
September 5, 2017
Easily a top contender for best book read in 2017. This anthology truly opened up a new world of writing to me. I absolutely loved this book, which is a collection of nature writing by American women, mostly from the 20th century. It includes many unique pieces of writing from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences, all with the overarching theme of the intersection of feminism and ecology - or, women seeking and finding communion with the natural world. In a moment of serendipity, I chose to read this collection while I was on a solo vacation in the Southwest, which made the experience even more special. There I was, a woman alone in nature, looking for the same exhilaration and peace that these women were seeking, finding, and writing about. This made for a truly enjoyable read.
Most of the selections are short, so it was great for short spurts of reading as well as long marathons. I also found several new (to me) writers whose work I plan to explore in the future. I enjoyed this book by the fireside, under the shadow of mountains, at the shores of sapphire lake set in sandstone cliffs...I'd recommend to this anyone who wants a comprehensive look at obscure 20th century American women writers. I would like to note I read the first edition of this anthology, published in the early 90s. It was recently updated with 50+ new selections, so I'm not sure how the scope/context has changed in that time.
Most of the selections are short, so it was great for short spurts of reading as well as long marathons. I also found several new (to me) writers whose work I plan to explore in the future. I enjoyed this book by the fireside, under the shadow of mountains, at the shores of sapphire lake set in sandstone cliffs...I'd recommend to this anyone who wants a comprehensive look at obscure 20th century American women writers. I would like to note I read the first edition of this anthology, published in the early 90s. It was recently updated with 50+ new selections, so I'm not sure how the scope/context has changed in that time.
August 26, 2014
Lorraine Anderson did a wonderful job collecting nature-related writings by talented women authors. I savored each page and loved the diversity of choices as I enjoy the diversity in life itself. I loved it so much I looked her up and sent her a message - she said she's coming out with other collections soon. When she does, I'll be sure to read them!
October 22, 2012
This is my all-time favorite non-fiction book ... I absolutely love it. "Christmas in Driftwood Valley" especially ... I think I've read it probably 2 dozen times.
December 15, 2023
This book was such a mixed bag. Some of the excerpts I really loved because they were either beautifully written, were weirdly abstract and unique, or gave a glimpse of beautiful happenings of the Earth in a way I had never thought of or knew anything about before. And then some of the excerpts were overtly colonial or just straight up boring.
I especially liked the last section of the book, titled “Healing Her: Walking in Balance with Nature” because it felt hopeful and (not coincidentally) had the most native representation, which I felt overall was lacking from the rest of the book. Apart from the Beaversprite story, this section of the book was so wise and beautiful, and contained literature that I know I will revisit and explore further.
I think there’s a version of this book that could be better balanced, but considering the publication year and the general lack of acknowledgment of female voices in the environmental literature world, I think this book was way ahead of its time and definitely something worth spending some time with.
I especially liked the last section of the book, titled “Healing Her: Walking in Balance with Nature” because it felt hopeful and (not coincidentally) had the most native representation, which I felt overall was lacking from the rest of the book. Apart from the Beaversprite story, this section of the book was so wise and beautiful, and contained literature that I know I will revisit and explore further.
I think there’s a version of this book that could be better balanced, but considering the publication year and the general lack of acknowledgment of female voices in the environmental literature world, I think this book was way ahead of its time and definitely something worth spending some time with.
September 29, 2025
One of those books that change your life. This compendium of women's nature writing is truly incredible. It features tons of women from all eras, even one writer born in the 1700s! The editor starts each section with a blurb about the woman's life, and then her piece follows. The biography blurbs were some of my favorite parts, just reading about all of these incredible women and the incredible lives they have lead. I was amazed at how many themes remained the same, from the 1800s to 2001 (when the book was published). I could have kept reading this for another month, the styles and messaging were so impactful. Would make a great gift, too.
February 5, 2025
This is quite a collection. Honestly, I was just pleased to see Joy Harjo, Leslie Marmon Silko, Adrienne Rich, and Ursula Le Guin be included.
April 30, 2021
This book had been sitting on my shelf for years before I picked it up and decided to read it. What a gem! The readings were rich in women's connection to nature and a discovery of female writers long unknown to me. The bibliography is a gift in itself and a great jumping off point to delve deeper into these writings.
September 30, 2022
A keeper for your collection.
October 17, 2022
As my degree is starting to get more obscure I can’t seem to find the exact poetry/ books we use. But some poems feature in this collection to the one I read
August 15, 2013
the back cover reads in part, "A stirring collection of women's writing on nature: Nature as healer. Nature as delight. Nature as mother & sister. Nature as victim. Nature as companion & reminder of what is wild in us all." this book is all that and more. it's a collection of pieces from more than 100 women poets, prose writers and authors who provide poems, essays, stories, & journal entries which span centuries. A wonderful addition to anyone's library with writers such as Emily Dickenson, Alice Walker, Terry Tempest Williams, Willa Cather, Gretel Ehrlich, Adrienne Rich, Louise Erdrich, Zora Neale Hurston, Kathleen Norris, Rita Dove, Julia Butterfly Hill, Barbara Kingsolver, Sue Hubbell, Starhawk and Rachel Carson. Magnificently edited by Lorraine Anderson, with fascinating & intelligent introductions of each new voice prior to their selected piece. I was so moved by this long, beautiful song in women's voices, flowing powerfully from their soft, more nurturing but incredibly strong souls. an outpouring on thought, experiences and love for nature. I was profoundly struck by a continuous refrain concerning the healing power of nature and a call for us to reciprocate. Perhaps Women's Review of Books says it best, "Not only is Sisters of the Earth a pleasure; it is relevant and urgent--politically, aestheticaly and spiritually." a read to relish and return to often.
July 27, 2012
Every author in this anthology has experienced a closeness to the natural world. The entries that speak most profoundly to me offer an experience of wildness in the midst of the ordinary, everyday world. Mary Donahue follows "a V of honkers" to the northland. I have often tried to imagine the world as it looks to flying geese. I wonder where they are going, what it would be like to fly with them. Judith Minty writes of "those cats of mine"; the enigma of living with a creature who is one moment lazing in the sun and a few hours later is stalking prey. A cat will convert a backyard into jungle wilderness. What better way is there to embrace the natural world than to have a cat, the most graceful, exquisite creature in existence, in one's own daily life.
In 1962 in her prescient book, "Silent Spring" Rachel Carson warned that the indiscriminant use of pesticides would have deleterious effects throughout the food chain up to and including our own species. She was labelled a "hysterical woman". I salute her and the scientists who are today sounding the alarm on global warming.
In 1962 in her prescient book, "Silent Spring" Rachel Carson warned that the indiscriminant use of pesticides would have deleterious effects throughout the food chain up to and including our own species. She was labelled a "hysterical woman". I salute her and the scientists who are today sounding the alarm on global warming.
Want to read
January 23, 2009So far, I am LOVING this book! A lovely collection of essays and poetry...perfect for when I can only read for 15-20 minutes. I will be exploring Helen Hoover's writing after finding her in these pages!
February 8, 2018
A lovely book with a mix of women's personal poetry and stories regarding earth and how women perceive her. Deep and moving, and without the aggressive writing like men tend to view the relationship with earth.
April 14, 2022
This book is like going to an art museum to reflect--there is a certain mood and time required for it to be enjoyable. I would say once you're in that right headspace, though, it is really interesting and shows the beauty of our simple and mundane interactions with nature.
August 7, 2011
Wonderful book of women's prose & poetry about the earth and wilderness. A woman's love for earth and her bookshelf should have this book!!! I refer to this jewel often.
October 12, 2015
An excellent book I highly recommend
dnf
May 30, 2024I checked the original edition out from MCPL (they didn't have this version in their collection) and happened to open it to "My Help Is in the Mountain" by Nancy Wood. This is a poem Marcia had on her desk in spring 2014 when Dad had his bout w/ cerebral meningitis and in which I tried to take comfort (I didn't have many self-comfort skills back then). I thought it was serendipitous and asked Marcia if she would be willing to read this anthology together - partly b/c I genuinely wanted to read it and knew I only would if I was held accountable to someone else (like a 2-person book club) and partly b/c I wanted to get to know Marcia better, since Dad was back in my life, which made Marcia family, too. Marcia agreed and we "met" on the phone several times to discuss the sections in sequence.
I was disappointed that Marcia wasn't better at discussing literature! I'd assumed that since she's a librarian - books! introvert! - she would also be an articulate and self-reflective reader. Nope! Most of our conversations were me drawing her out. No fun. Also - she's a very boring person. The more we talked abt this book the more I learned I don't care much for her. That was NOT how this enterprise was supposed to unfold! Between feeling like I had to stimulate her to keep the convo going (doing WAY too much work) and having a miserable time listening to her talk I increasingly dreaded our phone calls. But. I was determined to keep going. Because I had instigated this whole thing and it's important to me to be true to my word. But then. Dad was an ass one too many times and I said I was done tolerating that behavior and he was welcome to stop hurting me, please, otherwise he couldn't be in my life. And he chose the latter. Which meant Marcia was out, too. Also - not how things were meant to unfold. BUT. Small golden lining? It saved me from more dismal convos abt this book. (That convo w/ Dad was Memorial Day 2023.)
And, predictably, w/o an accountability partner my reading tapered. Partly b/c it's a large book so it's difficult to physically hold and partly b/c the included pieces didn't really hold my attention. It's a fairly academic venture into the world of nature writing, which I always find to be an odd juxtaposition (the brain vs the wilds). It also has that weird stench of 2nd wave feminism, where the non-gendered are construed as "feminine" (e.g., each section heading refers to 'Her,' meaning 'Nature' - WTF). I made it 1/2way thru the section called "Her Creatures" - to shy of 300 pages in. I liked Gene Stratton Porter and her moths (esp b/c Ellen and I talked abt her!!) but, like most of the rest of the book, I liked it conceptually more than in practice; i.e., her ideas were wonderful but her writing itself - the prose - didn't do it for me. Another reason I stalled out, esp where I did, was that the next section after "Her Creatures" is called "Her Rape" which I find offensive in so many ways. 'Rape' is NOT a word to be tossed around or taken lightly, but damn if those 2nd wavers weren't WAY TOO FOND of that metaphor.
I was disappointed that Marcia wasn't better at discussing literature! I'd assumed that since she's a librarian - books! introvert! - she would also be an articulate and self-reflective reader. Nope! Most of our conversations were me drawing her out. No fun. Also - she's a very boring person. The more we talked abt this book the more I learned I don't care much for her. That was NOT how this enterprise was supposed to unfold! Between feeling like I had to stimulate her to keep the convo going (doing WAY too much work) and having a miserable time listening to her talk I increasingly dreaded our phone calls. But. I was determined to keep going. Because I had instigated this whole thing and it's important to me to be true to my word. But then. Dad was an ass one too many times and I said I was done tolerating that behavior and he was welcome to stop hurting me, please, otherwise he couldn't be in my life. And he chose the latter. Which meant Marcia was out, too. Also - not how things were meant to unfold. BUT. Small golden lining? It saved me from more dismal convos abt this book. (That convo w/ Dad was Memorial Day 2023.)
And, predictably, w/o an accountability partner my reading tapered. Partly b/c it's a large book so it's difficult to physically hold and partly b/c the included pieces didn't really hold my attention. It's a fairly academic venture into the world of nature writing, which I always find to be an odd juxtaposition (the brain vs the wilds). It also has that weird stench of 2nd wave feminism, where the non-gendered are construed as "feminine" (e.g., each section heading refers to 'Her,' meaning 'Nature' - WTF). I made it 1/2way thru the section called "Her Creatures" - to shy of 300 pages in. I liked Gene Stratton Porter and her moths (esp b/c Ellen and I talked abt her!!) but, like most of the rest of the book, I liked it conceptually more than in practice; i.e., her ideas were wonderful but her writing itself - the prose - didn't do it for me. Another reason I stalled out, esp where I did, was that the next section after "Her Creatures" is called "Her Rape" which I find offensive in so many ways. 'Rape' is NOT a word to be tossed around or taken lightly, but damn if those 2nd wavers weren't WAY TOO FOND of that metaphor.
February 7, 2025
This anthology collects short pieces of nature writing by ninety different women. It's mostly prose, with the odd bit of poetry, and came about after the editor noted that most of the nature writing she read and admired had been written by men, so she started a deliberate search for that written by women. Hence the collection, although it's restricted to writers from the USA. Everything is well-written and compelling, although I note with interest that Mary Oliver refused permission to reprint "Wild Geese" in the anthology as she didn't feel that cataloguing the poem by gender was especially useful. It's one of my favourite poems, so that was a bit of a shame.
I've read a handful of the contributing authors before, including Ursula K. Le Guin and Terry Tempest Williams - I've very much enjoyed their previous work so no surprise that their respective contributions were some of my favourites here. For me, however, there was one piece that stood out from the rest - Annie Dillard's "Living Like Weasels". I made a note of the Dillard collection this essay was in so that I can get a copy of my own one day, because that essay was incredible.
As much as I enjoyed each piece separately, however, there were times when the overall effect came across as a little... glutinous, maybe? I know that nature writing tends towards the slower-paced, but there was nothing here longer than a handful of pages. Even ninety very short pieces shouldn't feel so slow as this, in my experience, but for some reason it did. Perhaps the effect was cumulative. A little more variation in the pacing amongst the individual pieces might have helped there, I think.
I've read a handful of the contributing authors before, including Ursula K. Le Guin and Terry Tempest Williams - I've very much enjoyed their previous work so no surprise that their respective contributions were some of my favourites here. For me, however, there was one piece that stood out from the rest - Annie Dillard's "Living Like Weasels". I made a note of the Dillard collection this essay was in so that I can get a copy of my own one day, because that essay was incredible.
As much as I enjoyed each piece separately, however, there were times when the overall effect came across as a little... glutinous, maybe? I know that nature writing tends towards the slower-paced, but there was nothing here longer than a handful of pages. Even ninety very short pieces shouldn't feel so slow as this, in my experience, but for some reason it did. Perhaps the effect was cumulative. A little more variation in the pacing amongst the individual pieces might have helped there, I think.
February 17, 2021
Wonderful collection of poems and stories by American Female Authors centered around the theme of Nature. From her Preface: “I do think there is a feminine way of being in relationship to nature. This way is caring rather than controlling; it seeks harmony rather than arrogance, by appreciation rather than acquisitiveness. It’s available to both men and women, but it hasn’t been exercised much in the history of Western civilization.” I came away with several authors that I now want to research and read. And for me it sealed my longing to move somewhere to be in the midst of nature (trees, mountains, ocean, animals)....
Thank you!
Thank you!
September 11, 2020
This was a quite different book from the kinds I usually read. Given to me by a good friend, it consists of short stories and poems about nature. The entries are written exclusively by women and give intimate reflections on everything from the smallest insects to large trees, small intimate spaces to vast vistas. It was not the kind of book I could sit down and be so absorbed in that I couldn't put it down, but it was a book of images of beauty and sometimes overwhelming power. I would recommend it to anyone who loves the outdoors and all its creatures.
January 7, 2018
Favorites include:
-Valerie Andrews "Beginning with a place" (p4) from A PASSION FOR THIS EARTH
-Opal Whiteley "The joy song of nature" (p7) from THE SINGING CREEK WHERE THE WILLOWS GROW
-Zora Neale Hurston "Blossoming pear tree" excerpt from THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD (p12)
-May Swenson "I will lie down" (p52)
-Celia Laighton Thaxter "Childhood on White Island" from AMONG THE ISLES OF SHOALS (p84)
-Barbara Meyn "Changing" (p294)
-Valerie Andrews "Beginning with a place" (p4) from A PASSION FOR THIS EARTH
-Opal Whiteley "The joy song of nature" (p7) from THE SINGING CREEK WHERE THE WILLOWS GROW
-Zora Neale Hurston "Blossoming pear tree" excerpt from THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD (p12)
-May Swenson "I will lie down" (p52)
-Celia Laighton Thaxter "Childhood on White Island" from AMONG THE ISLES OF SHOALS (p84)
-Barbara Meyn "Changing" (p294)
August 21, 2021
This was originally a textbook from college but i hadn't read the whole thing.
Lovely collection, centering around womens connection with nature. some of it was hard to read, some of it was fun. all of it was important.
Lovely collection, centering around womens connection with nature. some of it was hard to read, some of it was fun. all of it was important.
July 8, 2023
So much beautiful prose by women is contained in this book. I’ve had this on my shelf for many forgotten years and keep opening it again and again.
Poetry and essays by the greats: Rachel Carson, Willa Cather, Emily Dickinson, Barbara Kingsolver, Ursula Le Guin, Alice Walker, and more.
Poetry and essays by the greats: Rachel Carson, Willa Cather, Emily Dickinson, Barbara Kingsolver, Ursula Le Guin, Alice Walker, and more.
July 16, 2023
This one took me a few months since I just read a few selections from the anthology every now and then. I liked being introduced to new female nature writers. While there were a lot of really good insights and perspectives, some of the excerpts were a little too weird for me.
January 25, 2024
This book was so beautiful. The selections are so varied that it made me feel elated and melancholy and inspired all at once. Definitely one that I'm going to keep on my shelf and reread some of the essays periodically.
June 16, 2017
An amazing compendium; to be treasured.
April 12, 2018
This is a beautiful collection.
July 14, 2019
A nice bedside compendium... tidbits to read as one settles in for the night. Interesting intro to authors. Perhaps a little overwhelming though with 100+ pieces in the book.
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