CASCADIA FIELD GUIDE: Art, Ecology, Poetry
Edited by Elizabeth Bradfield, CMarie Fuhrman, and Derek Sheffield Publisher: Mountaineers Books ISBN: 978-1-68051-622-7 400 pages Published: Mar 1, 2023 browseExperience the poems, art, and wonder of Cascadia Field Guide. Meet some beings on our Browse page.
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"A gift in reciprocity for the gifts of the land." -– Robin Wall Kimmerer
Cascadia Field Guide brings together art, poetry, and stories holding scientific, sensory, and cultural knowledge to celebrate and illuminate Cascadia, the diverse ecoregion stretching from Alaska’s Prince William Sound to Northern California and from the Pacific Coast to the Continental Divide. Cascadia Field Guide contains 13 communities (from Tidewater Glacier to Shrub-Steppe) and 128 beings (from Geoduck to Cassia Crossbill). This "feel guide" (as Drew Lanham calls it) offers any reader, local or visitor, a new way of connecting-–with heart and mind and body-–to place. Advance Praise"Have you ever been so filled up with the wonder of a place that it wants to spill out as a song? Well, here is the songbook. I imagine walking through a forest and pausing to read Cascadia aloud to a listening cedar or a dipper. I think they’ll love it. There are field guides that help us to see, and to name and to know. Cascadia does all of that and more. This is a guide to relationship. These illuminating pages are a gift in reciprocity for the gifts of the land."
– Robin Wall Kimmerer, 2022 MacArthur Fellow and author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants “This field guide is a deeply informative and wildly exuberant visual and literary romp through one of the most spectacular regions of the world—a varied chorus of voices and visual talents, all celebrating the animals and plants of the great Pacific Northwest.” – Ray Troll, artist and co-author of Cruisin’ the Fossil Coastline “This beautiful choral celebration of entanglement ongoing and evermore is amazing, a wonder, a gratitude.” – Ross Gay, author of Inciting Joy and The Book of Delights "The rich array of writers and artists in Cascadia Field Guide takes us by verse and image through one of the most diverse eco-regions in North America. The collection, inspired by ecological and cultural inclusion, catalogs beast by beast and habitat by habitat why so many look to the northwest corner of the nation for wild respite. More than a collection, it is an essential compendium to the Pacific Northwest; a "feel guide" to an extraordinary place." – J. Drew Lanham, 2022 MacArthur Fellow and author of The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature and Sparrow Envy - Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts |
Communities & artistsCascadia Field Guide reflects and honors relationships through its very structure. The beings of the book are organized not by Linnean taxonomy, but by communities. A community might be made because one being eats another (Brown Bear eats Salmon) or in more nuanced ways (Spotted Owl's call echoes over Red Huckleberry).
Each community is illustrated by a different artist from Cascadia; the artists work in form line design, cut paper, pen and ink, and engage with sensibilities from playful to scientific. Meet the communities and their artists:
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Poets & writers In Cascadia Field Guide, writers with deep ties to the region–-both established and emerging-–share work alongside art and natural history/TEK-based stories engaging Orca, Mountain Goat, Bitterbrush and other iconic and endemic beings of Cascadia.
Some writers are new arrivals, either from overseas or through cross-continental migration; some have lived in the region for generations; some don't live here any longer, but spent significant portions of their lives in Cascadia. The writers (mostly poets) are from urban and rural areas, from all the states and provinces; they are emerging writers and venerable voices. 40 poems in Cascadia Field Guide are newly-written just for this book. WRITERS include Sherman Alexie, Betsy Aoki, Rick Barot, Linda Bierds, Allen Braden, Robert Bringhurst, Laura Da', Nora Marks Keixwnéi Dauenhauer, Chris Dombrowski, Kathleen Flenniken, Tess Gallagher, Lyanda Haupt, Kim Heacox, Sean Hill, Garret Hongo, Ever Jones, Robert Lashley, Dorianne Laux, Ursula K. LeGuin, Denise Levertov, Claudia Castro Luna, Colleen J. McElroy, Frances McCue, Kevin Miller, Shankar Naryan, Richard Nelson, Lucia Perillo, Jennifer Perrine, Vivian Faith Prescott, Matt Rader, Lois Red Elk, Paisley Rekdal, Theodore Roethke, Gary Snyder, Kim Stafford, Rob Taylor, Alexandra Teague, Jane Wong, Joe Wilkins, Robert Wrigley, Bill Yake, Isaac Yuen, Maya Jewell Zeller, Jan Zwicky...and more. |