Getting Over the Color Green: Contemporary Environmental Literature of the Southwest [Paperback]

Scott Slovic (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2001

Desert vistas are often deemed vacant, inhospitable wastelands. Don't suggest that to Joy Harjo, Pat Mora, or other contemporary southwestern writers. In these arid stretches, often devoid of green, today's southwestern writers see pyrotechnic colors and Gothic shapes that excite and often overwhelm the imagination. And they capture this excitement in words that fix these desert images in the minds of readers who may too often look at the world through green-colored glasses. This anthology of contemporary nature writing from the Greater Southwest brings together a host of writers including peers of Edward Abbey such as Charles Bowden and Ann Zwinger and representatives of a new generation of writers such as Rick Bass and Terry Tempest Williams. The book is an eclectic blend of nonfiction and fiction, field notes and poetry, through which artists of diverse backgrounds both celebrate and illuminate the unique vitality and complexity of southwestern literature— proving that green is only one of many colors on their palette. The selections included here range all across the southwestern landscape and explore adventures in the wild, topics in natural history, living close to the land, and efforts at conservation and restoration. They clearly demonstrate that there is grace and beauty in this often-maligned part of the world— both in the human traditions that have developed in the region and in the natural features of the desert itself.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This ambitious anthology . . . gives naturalists a field day for expressing themselves. . . . An enlightening read for those who want to connect knowingly and accountably with our high-desert surroundings." —Santa Fe New Mexican "This is a collection of journeys, experiences, dreams, and histories—personal, cultural, and natural. All demonstrate that literature is alive and well and intimately regional; all demonstrate that the modifier 'environmental' creates a larger view for writers, integrating their commitments to place and people." —Bloomsbury Review "A rich collection of environmental writing from a remarkably diverse group of contemporary southwestern authors . . . Longtime southwesterners will become reacquainted with old friends, while newcomers are introduced to many of the Southwest's finest nature writers." —Journal of Arizona History "This volume is full of good things. . . . The authors Slovic has chosen embody much of the best hopes and the best thinking about the West." —Western American Literature "Should find a permanent place on reading lists of courses in Western or Southwestern American literature and is an excellent choice for composition courses with an environmental theme." —ISLE

About the Author

Scott Slovic teaches environmental literature and directs the Center for Environmental Arts and Humanities at the University of Nevada, Reno. He served as the founding president of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) and is the author of Seeking Awareness in American Nature Writing and coeditor of Being in the World: An Environmental Reader for Writers.

Product Details

• Paperback: 377 pages
• Publisher: University of Arizona Press (February 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0816516650
• ISBN-13: 978-0816516650
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #781,894 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It was worth the wait, July 8, 2001

By 

Charles M. Nobles (Tulsa, OK United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Getting Over the Color Green: Contemporary Environmental Literature of the Southwest (Paperback)

Thanks to The Univ. Of Arizona Press the long-awaited anthology of contemporary writing abouth the southwestern desert is finally available. While not the first anthology of this awesome area it is the first in over a decade to feature the best efforts of over 50 new generation contemporary writers that see the area through other than green-colored glasses. The region known as the "southwest" is, and has historically been,difficult too precisely define. From the time of John Wesley Powell to the present scholars and writers have struggled to define the region geographically. To paraphrase author Anthony DePalma, "We know the Southwest exists, but we do not know the Southwest." The editor of this anthology ultimately decided to accept Wallace Stegner's definition as being an area where water is scarce: "aridity, and aridity alone, makes the various West's one." Thus, this wonderful collection includes areas in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Idaho,Montana, Washington, Oregon, and California. To be sure, it is a somewhat loose definition but what a collection this is. Organized around four themes or categories: "Watching Closely; Forays in Natural History"; Risking Experience: Adventures in the Wild"; "Living Close to the Land"; and "Taking a Stand: Voices of Conservation and Restoration," the reader is introduced to the Greater Southwest through fiction and nonfiction, field notes and poetry. The journey will take you to Chaco Canyon in New Mexico and a family farm in south Texas. You will visit a Nevada Test Site and take a white water trip down the green river than ends all to soon. The short story on the release of Bison in the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve near Pawhuska, Ok. was both delightful and inspiring. The story of the San Rafael Swell in southern Utah and it's place in the making of the atomic bomb, combined with an essay by T.H. Watkins titled "Not by Human Measure". will give the reader an idea of the magnificence of the region. The selections, in some 70 pieces and 400 pages, celebrate the grace, beauty and grandeur of a region little known and mostly misunderstood. These are wide-ranging efforts to explain the sometimes almost unexplainable in an area historically, and increasingly, under siege. There are those that argue such a book will only lead to more tourists and visitors to a region that has a fragile ecosystem and cannot tolerate much more "understanding." They argue that if to many heed the warning of Wallace Stegner: "you have to get over the color green; you have to quit associating beauty with gardens and lawns; you have to het used to an inhuman scale; you have to understand geological time," this treasure will go the way of Glen Canyon, parts of the Colorado River, the Rio Grande and other one-time natural wonders. At the expense of contributing to this possibility I must highly recommend this book. For anyone remotely interested in the southwest region or reading some of the best of the best contemporary nature writers published today, get this book. The University of Arizona Press is to be commended for this effort. It took a decade to get it published but was worth the wait.