A Literary Field Guide to Northern Appalachia

A Literary Field Guide to Northern Appalachia
Author: Todd Davis
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2024-09-15
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 0820367524

Northern Appalachia is one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth and home to a broad range of ecological and human cultures. With A Literary Field Guide to Northern Appalachia, editors Todd Davis and Noah Davis recognize and celebrate this diversity and the fact that humans are storytelling creatures who develop relationships with their landscapes at the intersection of art and science. A companion volume to A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia, this guide introduces the reader to seventy indigenous species found in Northern Appalachia, a region comprising parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. As a hybrid literary and natural history anthology, the book consists of descriptions and notes on habitat, range, and ecology provided by six scientists with expertise in the region’s flora and fauna. In addition, eleven artists and seventy poets have provided original artwork and poetry that illuminate the lives of the greater-than-human world. Defying easy stereotypes, the guide presents trees, shrubs, wildflowers and mammals, birds and fish, reptiles and amphibians, and invertebrates and fungi. Love and wonder for these ancient mountains and their ever-evolving residents flood the pages of this book, inviting the reader into a deeper way of knowing a place and the lives dependent on it.

A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia

A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia
Author: Rose McLarney
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2019-10-15
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0820356247

Getting acquainted with local flora and fauna is the perfect way to begin to understand the wonder of nature. The natural environment of Southern Appalachia, with habitats that span the Blue Ridge to the Cumberland Plateau, is one of the most biodiverse on earth. A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia—a hybrid literary and natural history anthology—showcases sixty of the many species indigenous to the region. Ecologically, culturally, and artistically, Southern Appalachia is rich in paradox and stereotype-defying complexity. Its species range from the iconic and inveterate—such as the speckled trout, pileated woodpecker, copperhead, and black bear—to the elusive and endangered—such as the American chestnut, Carolina gorge moss, chucky madtom, and lampshade spider. The anthology brings together art and science to help the reader experience this immense ecological wealth. Stunning images by seven Southern Appalachian artists and conversationally written natural history information complement contemporary poems from writers such as Ellen Bryant Voigt, Wendell Berry, Janisse Ray, Sean Hill, Rebecca Gayle Howell, Deborah A. Miranda, Ron Rash, and Mary Oliver. Their insights illuminate the wonders of the mountain South, fostering intimate connections. The guide is an invitation to get to know Appalachia in the broadest, most poetic sense.

A Field Guide to the Trees and Shrubs of the Southern Appalachians

A Field Guide to the Trees and Shrubs of the Southern Appalachians
Author: Robert E. Swanson
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 420
Release: 1994-03
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9780801845567

Although the title suggests this is a guide to plants in a limited geographic range, the plants here are found in many areas of eastern North America, and the book can therefore be used as a guide for this larger area. But for naturalists visiting the beautiful area of the Southern Appalachians, it is a detailed and useful guide to the amazing variety of trees, shrubs, and woody vines growing there. "For naturalists visiting the beautiful area of the Southern Appalachians, it is a detailed and useful guide to the amazing variety of trees, shrubs, and woody vines growing there."-American Reference Books Annual

A Literary Field Guide to Northern Appalachia

A Literary Field Guide to Northern Appalachia
Author: Todd Davis
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2024-09-15
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0820367516

Northern Appalachia is one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth and home to a broad range of ecological and human cultures. With A Literary Field Guide to Northern Appalachia, editors Todd Davis and Noah Davis recognize and celebrate this diversity and the fact that humans are storytelling creatures who develop relationships with their landscapes at the intersection of art and science. A companion volume to A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia, this guide introduces the reader to seventy indigenous species found in Northern Appalachia, a region comprising parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. As a hybrid literary and natural history anthology, the book consists of descriptions and notes on habitat, range, and ecology provided by six scientists with expertise in the region’s flora and fauna. In addition, eleven artists and seventy poets have provided original artwork and poetry that illuminate the lives of the greater-than-human world. Defying easy stereotypes, the guide presents trees, shrubs, wildflowers and mammals, birds and fish, reptiles and amphibians, and invertebrates and fungi. Love and wonder for these ancient mountains and their ever-evolving residents flood the pages of this book, inviting the reader into a deeper way of knowing a place and the lives dependent on it.

Writing Appalachia

Writing Appalachia
Author: Katherine Ledford
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 777
Release: 2020-03-17
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 0813178819

Despite the stereotypes and misconceptions surrounding Appalachia, the region has nurtured and inspired some of the nation's finest writers. Featuring dozens of authors born into or adopted by the region over the past two centuries, Writing Appalachia showcases for the first time the nuances and contradictions that place Appalachia at the heart of American history. This comprehensive anthology covers an exceedingly diverse range of subjects, genres, and time periods, beginning with early Native American oral traditions and concluding with twenty-first-century writers such as Wendell Berry, bell hooks, Silas House, Barbara Kingsolver, and Frank X Walker. Slave narratives, local color writing, folklore, work songs, modernist prose—each piece explores unique Appalachian struggles, questions, and values. The collection also celebrates the significant contributions of women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ community to the region's history and culture. Alongside Southern and Central Appalachian voices, the anthology features northern authors and selections that reflect the urban characteristics of the region. As one text gives way to the next, a more complete picture of Appalachia emerges—a landscape of contrasting visions and possibilities.

Muddy Dragon on the Road to Heaven

Muddy Dragon on the Road to Heaven
Author: Grant Clauser
Publisher: Distribution Partners
Total Pages: 92
Release: 2020-08
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 9781949933079

Winner of the Codhill Press Pauline Uchmanowicz Poetry Award, this collection of poetry explores social and ecological struggles, personal and public nostalgia, family and solitude and seek to balance it all with hope.

Spit

Spit
Author: Daniel Lassell
Publisher: MSU Press
Total Pages: 111
Release: 2021-07-01
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1628954299

The first-ever poetry book set on a llama farm, Daniel Lassell’s debut collection, Spit, examines the roles we play in the act of belonging. It is a portrait of a boy living on a farm populated with chickens sung to sleep by lullaby, captive wolves next door that attack a child, and a herd of llamas learning to survive despite coyotes and a chaotic family. The collection in part explores the role of the body in health and illness and one’s treatment of the earth and others. A theme of spirituality also weaves throughout the collection as the speaker treks into adulthood, yearning for peace amid the decline of his parents’ marriage. Driven by a “wish to visit / some landless landscape,” the speaker eventually leaves his family’s farm, only to find that return is impossible. After losing the farm and the llama herd to his parents’ divorce, the speaker wrestles with the role of presence as it relates to healing, remarking, “I wish enough, / to have only // these memories I have.” Unflinching at every turn, the collection pushes the boundaries of “home” to arrive upon new meaning, definition, and purpose.

A History of Appalachia

A History of Appalachia
Author: Richard B. Drake
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2003-09-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0813137934

Richard Drake has skillfully woven together the various strands of the Appalachian experience into a sweeping whole. Touching upon folk traditions, health care, the environment, higher education, the role of blacks and women, and much more, Drake offers a compelling social history of a unique American region. The Appalachian region, extending from Alabama in the South up to the Allegheny highlands of Pennsylvania, has historically been characterized by its largely rural populations, rich natural resources that have fueled industry in other parts of the country, and the strong and wild, undeveloped land. The rugged geography of the region allowed Native American societies, especially the Cherokee, to flourish. Early white settlers tended to favor a self-sufficient approach to farming, contrary to the land grabbing and plantation building going on elsewhere in the South. The growth of a market economy and competition from other agricultural areas of the country sparked an economic decline of the region's rural population at least as early as 1830. The Civil War and the sometimes hostile legislation of Reconstruction made life even more difficult for rural Appalachians. Recent history of the region is marked by the corporate exploitation of resources. Regional oil, gas, and coal had attracted some industry even before the Civil War, but the postwar years saw an immense expansion of American industry, nearly all of which relied heavily on Appalachian fossil fuels, particularly coal. What was initially a boon to the region eventually brought financial disaster to many mountain people as unsafe working conditions and strip mining ravaged the land and its inhabitants. A History of Appalachia also examines pockets of urbanization in Appalachia. Chemical, textile, and other industries have encouraged the development of urban areas. At the same time, radio, television, and the internet provide residents direct links to cultures from all over the world. The author looks at the process of urbanization as it belies commonly held notions about the region's rural character.

The Sonoran Desert

The Sonoran Desert
Author: Eric Magrane
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2016-02-25
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 0816531234

Desert cottontail // Sylvilagus audubonii - Simmons B. Buntin

Inspired Georgia

Inspired Georgia
Author: Judson Mitcham
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Total Pages: 141
Release: 2016
Genre: Photography
ISBN: 9780820349343

A unique collection of Georgia's contemporary poets and photographers that engages the history and culture of the state, while serving as a document of some of the best and most powerful pieces penned by Georgia poets and images shot by Georgia photographers in recent years.