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Poetry

Cover of Butterfly Launches from Spar Pole
Summer 2020

Butterfly Launches from Spar Pole

Cover of Butterfly Launches from Spar Pole

Krist Novoselić, Ray Prestegard, and Robert Michael Pyle

Murky Slough Music: 2019

 

This eleven-track acoustic folk offering celebrates the natural world with profound but approachable spoken-word verse inspired by the cycles of life and sciences of ecology and geology. Armed with a PhD from Yale University and sense of curiosity about and reverence for the biosphere, Robert Michael Pyle—a lepidopterist, naturalist, and award-winning writer—presents compelling poetry that explores the intertwined fates of humans and nature.

Pyle, largely considered the godfather … » More …

Summer 2020

Q&A with Robert Michael Pyle

Robert Michael Pyle on butterflies, Bigfoot, becoming a Nirvana fan, and working with legendary grunge musician Krist Novoselić (’16 Soc. Sci.) on an album ten years in the making

It started with a book-signing. That led to some beer-drinking, which led to lots of Grange meetings and—finally—recording.

Throughout the better part of a decade, award-winning author, lecturer, and lepidopterist Robert Michael Pyle worked on a spoken-word album in which poetry about the natural world meets acoustic instruments played mostly by grunge icon Krist Novoselić (’16 Soc. Sci.), founding member of and bassist for Nirvana.

Butterfly Launches from Spar Pole, released last fall, began with … » More …

Book cover of A Scientific Companion to Robert Frost
Winter 2018

A Scientific Companion to Robert Frost

Book cover of A Scientific Companion to Robert Frost

Virginia F. Smith ’97 PhD Biochem.

Clemson University Press: 2018

 

“Art,” said the Roman philosopher Cicero, “is born of the observation and investigation of nature.”

He said this two millennia before the arrival of Robert Frost, the New England poet who smuggled personal, subtle, and often dark themes into a vast, accessible, and popular body of work rooted largely in the natural world. As Virginia Smith notes in her fastidious A Scientific Companion to Robert Frost, … » More …

Fall 2018

Two river poems

Washington State University landscape architecture professor and poet Jolie Kaytes reflects on the complex emotions and rational considerations about the Columbia River watershed through poems that give new ways to consider our part in the stories of the River.

 

Fishhook Park

A tongue stopping “f”

with a soft “ish,”

tied to a tight lipped “h”

caught on “ook.”

Hard to swallow.

Where the Palouse Band gathered,

homed their family bones

now buried by the Snake River’s

stopped up waters, slow and dumb.

Deer at Twilight book cover
Fall 2018

Deer at Twilight—Poems from the North Cascades

Deer at Twilight book cover

By Paul J. Willis ’80 MA, ’85 PhD

Stephen F. Austin State University Press: 2018

 

Hiking solo through the mountains can be a lonely endeavor. Missing human companionship, some turn to the subtle moods and personalities inherent in the woodland world itself.

Those emotional complexities come alive in this lovely little volume written while author Paul Willis explored the North Cascades National Park during an artist-in-residence program and a subsequent residency with the North Cascades Institute.

His verse covers territory … » More …

Book - Briefly Noted
Winter 2016

Briefly noted

 

Light in the Trees

Gail Folkins ’85

Texas Tech University Press: 2016 

Folkins draws on her experiences growing up in rural western Washington to weave a coming of age tale for both the narrator and the place. The memoir, touching on everything from serial killers and Northwest volcanoes to Sasquatch myths and runaway livestock, glides through past and present while exploring cultural and environmental topics illustrating the changing American West.

 

The Expanding Universe: A Primer on Relativistic Cosmology

William D. Heacox ’72 MA

Cambridge University Press: 2015

Cosmology, the science of the universe, has seen a renaissance in recent decades. This textbook by … » More …

Book - Briefly Noted
Summer 2016

Briefly noted

 

Immortal of the Cinder Path: the Saga of James “Ted” Meredith

By John Jack Lemon ’78

2015

In this first tribute to early twentieth-century athlete James “Ted” Meredith, Lemon introduces a mostly forgotten, and sometimes heartbreaking, story of a world-record breaking runner, Olympic gold medalist, and all-around sports star.

 

Hope

By Suzanne D. Lonn ’67

WestBow Press: 2014

This third novel from Lonn explores family dynamics through adoption, obsessive compulsive disorders, and salvation. Hope is a sequel to Lonn’s earlier novel The Game of Hearts (2003 Exlibris). She also published Mixed Nuts in 2008, a novel about elder abuse, alcoholism, depression, and dementia.

» More …

The Long Place cover
Spring 2016

The Long Place

The Long Place cover

Luis Montaño ’76 MFA

Ocote Press: 2015

Spokane artist Luis Montaño’s book of poetry, 50 years in the making, dips deep into his childhood in New Mexico and tells autobiographical and allegorical stories of the wide landscape, grizzled veterans, and a favorite diner hangout with friends.

Montaño worked for many years as a ceramic artist and jewelry designer, as well as teaching at Eastern Washington University, after graduating from WSU. As he … » More …