Spring 2022
Briefly noted
Short reviews of books by Washington State University alumni » More ...
Poetry
Summer 2020
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 …
Summer 2019
Briefly noted
Brief reviews of books by WSU alumni, faculty, and the WSU Press: crime novel, cryptocurrency, childrens' books, humor, insects, and plants. » More ...
Winter 2018
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.
» More …
Fall 2018
Deer at Twilight—Poems from the North Cascades
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 …
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 …
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 …
Spring 2016
The Long Place
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 …