Visualizing Nature: Essays on Truth, Spririt, and Philosophy

by Stuart Kestenbaum (Editor)

Visualizing Nature brings together contemporary visionaries to share deeply personal essays on nature, ecology, sustainability, climate change, philosophy, and more. Compiled by editor and poet Stuart Kestenbaum, the contributors represent a wide range of backgrounds and experiences, each honoring nature's power to heal, inspire, guide, amaze, and strengthen.

Activist Maulian Dana of the Penobscot Nation writes on the intertwining relationship of motherhood and Mother Earth. Biology professor David Haskell tells the story of the resilient bristlecone pine trees, which live to be as old as 2,100 years. Iranian scholar Alireza Taghdarreh speaks to his experience of translating Emerson's "Nature" into Farsi. A previously unpublished 1962 speech by Rachel Carson complements the collection of more than twenty essays, each inviting the reader into a quiet space of reflection with the opportunity to think deeply about how they relate to the natural world.

Genres: Nature

112 pages, Hardcover

Published June 15, 2021

About the author

Stuart Kestenbaum of Deer Isle, Maine, is the state's poet laureate and senior advisor at Monson Arts. Formerly the director of Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Kestenbaum has authored five poetry collections as well as The View from Here, a collection of essays.

Reviews

[Lynne Fort · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of essays that goes by quickly and will offer a few words of wisdom to those who love nature. Not an amazing collection, but not terrible. My favorites were "On Discipline" by Alison Hawthorne Deming, "Earth Verse" by Kim Stafford, and "The Geography of Memory" by Akiko Busch.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Heady title but only a few pieces in this collection actually live up to it.

[Michal Wojtkiewicz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, that definitely did not live up to the thesis presented on the cover…

[Paula · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short collection of essays on nature, ecology, sustainability, climate change, philosophy, etc. inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson's NatureNature. by Ralph Emerson tying together some of my biggest passions: nature and reading/writing. Not all were particularly inspiring or insightful, but there were some nuggets here that have me motivated to write more about the natural world as I experience it.