The Colors of Nature

Author's Bio:

Alison H. Deming, a poet and essayist, is the author of Writing the Sacred into the Real (Milkweed 2000), The Edges of the Civilized World, and The Monarchs: A Poem Sequence. She is the editor of Poetry of the American West. A direct descendant of writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, Deming teaches in the creative writing department at the University of Arizona.

Lauret E. Savoy, associate professor of geology and environmental studies at Mount Holyoke College, is a the co-editor of Living with the California Coast. A woman of mixed African-American , Native-American and Euro-American heritage, Savoy combines research, writing, and photography to examine connections and boundaries between cultures, individuals, and the land through time.

Quotes:

“A salient contribution to the increasingly important nature-writing canon.”—Donna Seaman for Booklist

“...It is the essays themselves that shine through, and the recollections of these fine writers will allow the reader, however briefly, to view the world through their eyes.”—NAPRA Review

“This notable anthology assembles thinkers and writers with firsthand experience or insight on how economic and racial inequities affect a person's understanding of nature.... It's not a stretch to see that the bourgeoisie's notion of nature as a protected playground." —Publishers Weekly

“In a world where context and perspectives are often debated, here is a collection that rejoices in the multitude of visions on this topic, as seen from the vantages of race and color.... The rich variety in this collection defies thematic categories.” —Helen Zia, Women's Review of Books

“The Colors of Nature marks a welcome shift toward a much more substantive and enriching interdisciplinary range of voices than in any environmental writing anthology to date....With The Colors of Nature, Deming and Savoy have shifted the boundaries of nature writing, ecocriticism, and environmental justice literature boyond tokenism toward a more inclusive, holistic, and expansive perspective. Such a shift is long overdue, and very welcome.” —Isle

“The book is a deliberate effort on the part of the editors to add diversity to the “overwhelmingly white” world of nature writing. These seventeen writers—of Japanese-American, Latino, African-American and other backgrounds...see the cordoning off and subjugation....The editors did well to realize that the books essential point—that to respect nature is to respect oneself—is a message best delivered by those who have reflected deeply on what it is to lose both.” —Onearth

“How can we listen to the environment and each other talking about the environment, to better understand multiple perspectives? The Colors of Nature is a good place to start....Not to be taken lightly, each composition is to be cared for in a way that only undivided attention and open heart can bring. So, whether it is listening to the land as demonstrated in the life of Joseph Bruchac or joining in on the pointed humor of Al Young, we need to celebrate this book.” —Voices from the Earth

 “Our perception of nature is a cultural construct formed in part by nature writing, which has long been dominated by Euro-American voices. The exclusion of writings by people of color about place, nature's wonders, and our species' uncanny ability to wreak havoc on the natural world has skewed and limited the genre, and cheated society out of a fuller understanding of the connection between social injustice and environmental destruction. Coeditors Deming, a poet and nature writer, and Davoy, a geologist, begin to remedy this omission with their unprecedented and invaluable collection of forthright and bracing essays by writers of 'diverse cultural origins and disciplinary backgrounds.' Jamaica Kincaid and Francisco X. Alarcón write about nature and imperialism in the 'New' World, American Indian writer Joseph Bruchac writes about owls, turkeys, turtles, and protecting his ancestors' burial grounds from developers. Memories of her Kentucky hill childhood inspire bell hooks to portray nature-wise 'country black folks,' while poets and scientists ardently and knowledgeably discuss everything from parrots to ethnobotany, and environmental racism. A salient contribution to the increasingly important nature-writing canon.” —Donna Seaman, Booklist

“The Colors of Nature indirectly makes reference to specific tribal frames of reference but never attempts to deal with these perspectives except in progressive, subject-object relationships. In general, the collection of essays depends on modes of social life formed in religious and cultural, intellectual and aesthetic terms familiar within the post-modern, multicultural, globalization process. The editors in their introduction ask such questions as,'Yet why have the works of contemporary native American authors who write of individual and communal experiences integrated with the world around them—and works of other writers of color—only recently been included with some definitions of nature writing?' The question is couched in cause-and-effect terms, which makes it difficult in treating tribally specific forms of nature writing. (para) This volume and others like it can point to American Indian tribal nature writing. In the end, however, as is always the case with Native American Literature of any genre, readers must go to those who are connected with the cultures and languages to experience any moment of illumination. It is more likely that post-modern, multicultural, and globalizing modes of thought will be included in Shoshone nature writing, and that of other tribes, before the reverse is true in Anglo-American nature writing.” —World Literature Today, Howard Meredith