Sex and the river Styx
Gooseneck lighting
nattering
cambium juice

Polliwog
Windthrow
Margay cats
Aoudad
uncosseted elk or mule deer
rassling a steer
Green up
sibilation
Tessitura
Fatback
Abyssinian chronicles
Wole Soyinka
Elechi Amadi
Ngugi wa Thiong'o
Okot p'Bitek
Peter Abrahams
nostrums
Shadbush
Grim Reaper
The method of nature
The Broken balance poem
The Broken balance article
Thoreau


When I confused Edward Hoagland with Edward Hirsch as a poet, 'Sex and the River Styx' became my to-read book. I am glad about the mix-up.

A look at the contents, 'Small Silences', 'Last Call', 'A Last look around', 'Endgame', 'The Glue is Gone' - this cant be good.

"Rising land of course will lift our spirits too".

"the immensity of winds, stars and trees, the infinity of unlobotomized animal species, the intricacy of landscapes, the galaxy of scents and shapes in natural creation, that we are losing, or just no longer sense or see". The author's lament on the status of man-nature relationship, the loss of adventure and mystery in the exploration, is the common thread through most of the chapters. His life and aging experiences have shaped his views on this part where "We do our turn, hang upside down or somersault or walk a wire, then bow out of the limelight."

Ascribing pinnae, whiskers, antenae to humans, the author maintains the continuity he feels between the woods and the house. The book is full of striking metaphors like planetary Lou Gehrig's disease, a cross-stitch of mercenary and sexual greed.

A proud Earthian who wishes to become a limestone if he can remain affixed forever to earth, in this age when we are planning for a dream vacation to other planets. The authors views do make us sit up and ask ourselves if there is anything we can do. If corn for fuel is obscenity to the author, what might he think of the test tube meat?

Thinking about this book, I wondered what the man who fell the first tree felt.

I have my hands on Hoagland's earlier book, 'Notes from the century before' - A journal from British Columbia.