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Getting acquainted with local flora and fauna is the perfect way to begin to understand the wonder of nature. The natural environment of Southern Appalachia, with habitats that span the Blue Ridge to the Cumberland Plateau, is one of the most biodiverse on earth.
A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia--a hybrid literary and natural history anthology--showcases sixty of the many species indigenous to the region.
Ecologically, culturally, and artistically, Southern Appalachia is rich in paradox and stereotype-defying complexity. Its species range from the iconic and inveterate--such as the speckled trout, pileated woodpecker, copperhead, and black bear--to the elusive and endangered--such as the American chestnut, Carolina gorge moss, chucky madtom, and lampshade spider. The anthology brings together art and science to help the reader experience this immense ecological wealth.
Stunning images by seven Southern Appalachian artists and conversationally written natural history information complement contemporary poems from writers such as Ellen Bryant Voigt, Wendell Berry, Janisse Ray, Sean Hill, Rebecca Gayle Howell, Deborah A. Miranda, Ron Rash, and Mary Oliver. Their insights illuminate the wonders of the mountain South, fostering intimate connections. The guide is an invitation to get to know Appalachia in the broadest, most poetic sense.
About the author
Rose McLarney (Editor) ROSE McLARNEY has published four collections of poems:
Colorfast, Forage,
The Always Broken Plates of Mountains, and
Its Day Being Gone, the winner of the National Poetry Series. She also has a book of lyric essays that is forthcoming. Her work has appeared in the
Kenyon Review, Southern Review, New England Review, and
American Poetry Review, among many others. She is the Lanier endowed professor of creative writing at Auburn University and coeditor in chief and poetry editor of the
Southern Humanities Review.
Laura-Gray Street (Editor) LAURA-GRAY STREET is the author of
Pigment and Fume, Just Labor, and
Shift Work and co-editor of
The Ecopoetry Anthology and
Attached to the Living World: A New Ecopoetry Anthology. Her awards include fellowships from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, the Hambidge Center for the Arts and Sciences, the Black Earth Institute, and Storyknife. Street is the Mary Frances Williams Professor of English, director of the Visiting Writers Series, and editor in chief of
Revolute at Randolph College in Virginia.
L. L. Gaddy (Editor) L. L. GADDY is a naturalist and writer based in South Carolina. He heads Terra Incognita, a nonprofit company in South Carolina that does environmental consulting, research, and exploration and is president of Terra Incognita Books, which publishes work on natural history and travel. He is the author of
Spiders of the Carolinas;
A Naturalist's Guide to the Southern Blue Ridge Front;
Gorges, Waterfalls, and Wildflowers; Climbing Sacred Mountains; and
Spiders of Eastern North America. For more information about Gaddy or Terra Incognita Books, please visit www.tibooks.org.
