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Minus 31 and the Wind Blowing: Reflections About Living on Land
150 pages, Paperback
Published August 1, 1980
About the author
John Meade Haines
38 books19 followersBorn in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1924, John Haines studied at the National Art School, the American University, and the Hans Hoffmann School of Fine Art. The author of more than ten collections of poetry, his recent works include At the End of This Summer: Poems 1948-1954 (Copper Canyon Press, 1997); The Owl in the Mask of the Dreamer (1993); and New Poems 1980-88 (1990), for which he received both the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize and the Western States Book Award.
He has also published a book of essays entitled Fables and Distances: New and Selected Essays (1996), and a memoir, The Stars, the Snow, the Fire: Twenty-five Years in the Northern Wilderness (1989).
Haines spent more than twenty years homesteading in Alaska, and has taught at Ohio University, George Washington University, and the University of Cincinnati. Named a Fellow by The Academy of American Poets in 1997, his other honours include the Alaska Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, two Guggenheim Fellowships, an Amy Lowell Travelling Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Library of Congress. John Haines lives in Helena, Montana.
[source]
He has also published a book of essays entitled Fables and Distances: New and Selected Essays (1996), and a memoir, The Stars, the Snow, the Fire: Twenty-five Years in the Northern Wilderness (1989).
Haines spent more than twenty years homesteading in Alaska, and has taught at Ohio University, George Washington University, and the University of Cincinnati. Named a Fellow by The Academy of American Poets in 1997, his other honours include the Alaska Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, two Guggenheim Fellowships, an Amy Lowell Travelling Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Library of Congress. John Haines lives in Helena, Montana.
[source]
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 9, 2014
"The nomadic oil geologist and the peripatetic prospector are both part of a culture which is rooted directly in an ancient and inescapable tradition of dependence upon the land."
Life in Alaska has impelled me to reflect upon the land with an urgency and frequency I've not previously experienced. The vast landscapes here fulfill a need I never recognized. I have found myself longing for a log cabin in the woods where once I coveted chic apartments on trendy city blocks.
I suppose then that I'm not surprised that the first book published by the Alaska Humanities Forum meditates on life and land. It is what you do here, at least that's my impression 6 months in.
I enjoy reading essays that are decades old, when I know how things end and the writer does not. It's fun to feel clairvoyant, the Cassandra of open-to-entry land claims and pipeline policy.
In any case, it's neat to follow the leaps of logic that are now so strange, but which must have once seemed only natural:
"...without growth, gross inequalities in the distribution of wealth in this country would become starkly clear [ok, I'm with ya]. From this it's evident that the future of capitalism and perhaps all industrial society is intimately staked on the question of nuclear energy - no other way to keep up growth. This leads to the disastrous fast breeder reactor... and the fast breeder leads to a police state [wait, what?]."
This paragraph is followed by "I repeat this well-known information to..."
It's fascinating what some people once considered well known.
The essays are of varying quality, but all interesting for different reasons. I particularly enjoyed "Poetry of the Land: Humor and Hard Times" which was delightful. True to title, I laughed frequently while reading it, the kind of laugh you might let out after being punched in the gut. If you're wondering what I mean, I recommend checking out Archibald MacLeish's "Empire Builders" - http://books.google.com/books?id=KI0E... (you'll have to click on the link to see page 269).
"The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in Perspective" was also notable for putting forth a compelling argument that the act was not quite the departure from historical Native policies that it is often claimed to be.
I also enjoyed the more personal reflections of John Haines and Margaret Murie.
All in all a worthwhile read.
Life in Alaska has impelled me to reflect upon the land with an urgency and frequency I've not previously experienced. The vast landscapes here fulfill a need I never recognized. I have found myself longing for a log cabin in the woods where once I coveted chic apartments on trendy city blocks.
I suppose then that I'm not surprised that the first book published by the Alaska Humanities Forum meditates on life and land. It is what you do here, at least that's my impression 6 months in.
I enjoy reading essays that are decades old, when I know how things end and the writer does not. It's fun to feel clairvoyant, the Cassandra of open-to-entry land claims and pipeline policy.
In any case, it's neat to follow the leaps of logic that are now so strange, but which must have once seemed only natural:
"...without growth, gross inequalities in the distribution of wealth in this country would become starkly clear [ok, I'm with ya]. From this it's evident that the future of capitalism and perhaps all industrial society is intimately staked on the question of nuclear energy - no other way to keep up growth. This leads to the disastrous fast breeder reactor... and the fast breeder leads to a police state [wait, what?]."
This paragraph is followed by "I repeat this well-known information to..."
It's fascinating what some people once considered well known.
The essays are of varying quality, but all interesting for different reasons. I particularly enjoyed "Poetry of the Land: Humor and Hard Times" which was delightful. True to title, I laughed frequently while reading it, the kind of laugh you might let out after being punched in the gut. If you're wondering what I mean, I recommend checking out Archibald MacLeish's "Empire Builders" - http://books.google.com/books?id=KI0E... (you'll have to click on the link to see page 269).
"The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in Perspective" was also notable for putting forth a compelling argument that the act was not quite the departure from historical Native policies that it is often claimed to be.
I also enjoyed the more personal reflections of John Haines and Margaret Murie.
All in all a worthwhile read.
August 28, 2020
I borrowed this anthology of nonfiction from the library because I was curious about John Haines' musings, which all concern Alaska. Haines' (as assessed from these essays) reads like a man's writer, masculine topics to which I cannot relate (hunting-gathering themes). Brutish and didactic at times. I myself read for speculation and aesthetic-pleasing moments.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews