Category Archives: Literature

Finding Thoreau in Suburbia

Posted on December 28, 2015 by Sandy Stott | 3 comments

By Corinne H. Smith

I was invited to a holiday dinner by a pair of new friends. They live in an expanding housing development that just a few years ago was still a field standing tall with corn. They gave me explicit directions to their townhouse. I was to follow Elmcrest Boulevard to Cobblestone Drive and then their street, Oak Leaf Drive. If I reached Field View Drive or Green Park Drive, I would have gone too far.

Although I had seen this neighborhood from a distance, I had never driven through it. I already suspected that I would see neither elm trees nor oak trees, and that I would not be able to drive or walk on cobblestones. And the “field view” wouldn’t be of a “green park.” It would offer the pleasing sight of endless garages and rooflines, or of mud and machinery and of other houses being built to fill in the empty spaces. I knew I wouldn’t like it. But if this is where these folks wanted to live, so be it. They were my friends, and they were nice enough to invite me to dinner.

When the time came, I made my way to the entrance of Elmcrest Boulevard. It wasn’t as grand as it sounded. And it had nary a straight stretch. Not even one inch. It wound through the place like a drunken sailor: first this way, and then that. Other cross streets turned off at each bend. I drove slowly and focused on the names on the signs, hoping to finally spot Cobblestone Drive. But when Emerson Drive showed up on my right, I started laughing. Really, THE Emerson? Ralph Waldo Emerson? Here in suburbia, almost 400 miles away from Concord, Massachusetts? I glanced at the clock. I had time. I could inspect how Mr. Emerson’s legacy was interpreted here. I made the turn onto Emerson Drive.

As I suspected, both sides of Emerson were filled with houses that were too close together. They were neat and tidy, and they all looked the same. Then Alcott Drive turned off to the left. I laughed again. I could picture poor Bronson shaking his head at the sight. The next left was Thoreau Drive. Of course! It had to be. I turned left. Here I was, driving along Thoreau. It looked just like Emerson and Alcott. Interpret this statement as you will.

Obligatory stop at junction of Emerson and Thoreau

The literary theme continued. The streets leading off Thoreau were James Way, Dickens Lane, and Hemingway Lane. Then Emerson showed up again. It had circled around behind the rest. I turned left to get back to where I needed to be. I expected to see Alcott Lane again on my way back. But no. Hawthorne Lane had sneaked in ahead of Alcott. It turned out that Alcott and Hawthorne twisted around each other here. Interpret this statement as you will.

Emerson Drive soon became Walden Way. Really now, this was simply too much.

But to the developers’ credit, the road was just a short pass-through back to Elmcrest Boulevard. The only structure on Walden Way was a common building that fronted a pool and a series of tennis courts. Behind it loomed a small but muddy retaining pond. Once I passed these, I could make a turn and get back to where I needed to be. It took only a few minutes more to find my friends’ house.

Walden water?

The dinner was great, and so was the conversation. We all ate too much. Soon the sun dropped behind the bulldozers parked behind my friend’s backyard. Clouds moved in. I thanked my hosts for their hospitality and headed home.

It wasn’t too dark yet. So I followed the Transcendental route again, this time in the opposite direction: Walden Way, Emerson and Thoreau, with a glance at Hawthorne, Hemingway, Dickens, James and Alcott. This time, I took pictures. I almost wanted to know who had named these streets and why. Were the choices meant as a true tribute to the authors? Or were they merely names to fill up signs? Did the residents know who their streets were named after? I was torn between feeling validated in my love for these writers and being appalled.

And even though it would be a great address to have, I knew I would never want to live along this version of Thoreau Drive. I’d rather live in a house on a street that’s older than me. One that has some character in its framework, and with mature trees towering over it. Many years will pass before you will be able to say this about my friends’ neighborhood. (If ever.) Still, such a discovery allows us a chance for a vicarious visit to the legacies of the Transcendentalists, in a place you’d never expect to find them.

Whether they’d be gratified or not, it turns out that the Transcendentalists are everywhere.

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Posted in Environment, General, Henry David Thoreau, Literature, Living Deliberately, Nature, The Roost

Perhaps…Poems

Posted on December 24, 2015 by Sandy Stott | 3 comments

Perhaps…

…you too scrolled through the list of favorite poems cited by various notables the other day (12/23) on the NY Times site.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/books/review/whats-your-favorite-poem.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=mini-moth®ion=top-stories-below&WT.nav=top-stories-below

Given some modest holiday travel, some seasonal spirit and the general retrospection of this time of year, I thought it might be fun to offer the same chance here.

Henry Thoreau began his writings as a poet, and, while he made his name as a prose writer, it’s also clear that poetry never left his heart or mind – so much of his work has the stir of poetry in it.

Here then, is a short, predictive poem Henry Thoreau published in The Dial (1840-44). I’ve always loved its reminder:

My life has been the poem I would have writ,
But I could not both live and utter it.

And here is a favorite of mine with a sweet, little backstory.

In my early 40s, I received a slim, wrapped present for my birthday from my father. Though he read little poetry himself, he knew I loved and read many poets and poems. He knew also that Mary Oliver was my favorite. I unwrapped the gift, a copy of The Night Traveller, a hard-to-find early chapbook of Oliver’s poetry. The gift deepened when I opened the chapbook: There, on the formerly blank backside of the cover was a handwritten version of the poem you’ll find below. The handwriting belonged to Mary Oliver, and I found also a little birthday note from her. My father had, with a kind determination he showed all his life, found Mary Oliver and, clearly, touched her with his request for his son.

That gift became a recurring one for me: Mary Oliver became a regular contributor to the journal I edited, and, during that decade, her letters also included various asides about dogs and woodlands, affections we shared.

Some Questions You Might Ask

by Mary Oliver

Is the soul solid, like iron?
Or is it tender and breakable, like
the wings of a moth in the beak of the owl?
Who has it, and who doesn’t?
I keep looking around me.
The face of the moose is as sad
as the face of Jesus.
The swan opens her white wings slowly.
In the fall, the black bear carries leaves into the darkness.
One question leads to another.
Does it have a shape? Like an iceberg?
Like the eye of a hummingbird?
Does it have one lung, like the snake and the scallop?
Why should I have it, and not the anteater
who loves her children?
Why should I have it, and not the camel?
Come to think of it, what about the maple trees?
What about the blue iris?
What about all the little stones, sitting alone in the moonlight?
What about roses, and lemons, and their shining leaves?
What about the grass?

And here is another link to Robert Pinsky’s brilliant Favorite Poem Project, begun while he was U.S Poet Laureate. For the project all sorts of people choose and recite a favorite poem; it is simply inspiring, as well as being great fun: http://www.favoritepoem.org/

And you? We welcome your thoughts, favorite poems, links.

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Posted in Arts, Environment, General, Henry David Thoreau, Literature, Living Deliberately, Nature, The Roost, Thoreau Quote

Opened after 110 Years – Advent Pages in Thoreau’s Journals

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Sandy Stott | 2 comments

It is clear that I have never been here before – this early winter, 1860 section of my 1906 edition of the journals is rife with uncut pages; drawing a knife carefully along the joined edge of two pages is a little like opening a present or finding a secret glade. I have never seen these words, these observations, before; and yet each is a little window into a world I’ve come to know, to anticipate.

Like many children who grew itchy at time’s slow passage as Christmas neared, I liked the advent calendar. December’s dark days seemed a sort of tunneling toward magic, and the calendar’s little windows lit the way. My more religious grandmother had given the calendar to her somewhat-wayward son’s family, and in one season I had memorized each window’s offering. Still, until each window opened and its little painting appeared, the future felt like mystery.

Modern Advent Calendar

Now, as I reopen each in memory, I realize that they were refreshingly free of religious iconography, that most of the tiny paintings behind the doors showed birds, pine cones, trees and snow; our calendar was paean to the world beyond the windows, and, during the short days of waiting for first snow and the 25th’s presents, that’s where I went to pass the time.

That you could only open one advent window per day kept time tugging at its reins. The fifth, as I recall, featured a Christmas tree, and sometime during that week, we too got our tree, which then spent the obligatory 48 hours in a bucket of sugar-water outside the backdoor. The candles along our mantle mimicked the green and yellow painting of day eight. Double figures neared, then arrived.

Now, I no longer have an advent calendar, but the habit of countdown remains; I imagine little woodland scenes behind the door to each day; then I go looking for them. And in this season of small windows, I confess that I have been bad, a little. Each day, when I’ve picked up Thoreau’s journal, I have opened more than one page, read more than one window’s words. That turns out to have been unavoidable, because after December 4th, Thoreau recorded little of that December.

The largest door in my remembered advent calendar was, of course, that of the 25th; behind it lay the day toward which we had been counting. The 25th doesn’t appear in Thoreau’s 1860 journal, but the 26th bears mention of what must have been a present received on the 25th. That year Thoreau’s 25th opened to an owl: “Melvin sent to me yesterday a perfect Strix asio, or red owl of Wilson, — not at all gray.”

And, in the next paragraph, Thoreau’s fascination with the details of his gift are clear. As ever, the windows of Henry Thoreau’s calendar opened to the natural world, even when it was brought to him as a present. And this gift-owl was part of a local habit wherein Thoreau’s neighbors brought to him their findings from the woods when it opened its windows to them.

Long-eared Owl

In my long ago calendar, we too had an owl; it was painted into one of the early December days, its large eyes looking out in anticipation. I didn’t know then these little paintings of the owl and the fir tree and the snowy path led to the present I’d receive over a lifetime. But perhaps, when she selected that woodland calendar, my grandmother intuited it.

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Posted in Arts, Environment, General, Henry David Thoreau, Literature, Living Deliberately, Nature, News and Events, The Roost, Thoreau Quote