Naturalists - Biography, U.S. Poets - Literary Biography

Winter Creek: One Writer's Natural History

Name: Winter Creek: One Writer's Natural History
Author: John Daniel
ISBN: 9781571312662

by John Daniel

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Overview

The creek behind John Daniel's home in western Oregon disappears underground in the summer months. Using this creek as a metaphor, Daniel reflects on his own seasonal changes — from days as a student on LSD, rock climber, logger, and railroad worker, to life as a writer attentive to the "evidence of the unseen."

Synopsis

The creek behind John Daniel’s home in western Oregon disappears underground in the summer months. Using this creek as a metaphor, Daniel reflects on his own seasonal changes — from days as a student on LSD, rock climber, logger, and railroad worker, to life as a writer attentive to the “evidence of the unseen.” The newest title in Milkweed's Credo series, this is a compelling, honest memoir about becoming a poet and writer. “[Daniel’s voice is] fresh, self-reflective, and free of cant ... shows considerable originality, force, and descriptive art.” — Kirkus Reviews on John Daniel's The Trail Home

Publishers Weekly

Daniel grew up in northern Virginia and in 1966 moved west to attend Reed College in Portland, Ore. There, his experiences in nature under the influence of LSD and other hallucinogens led him to drop out of college and become a logger, a rock climber and, finally, a lauded poet. He eventually received a prestigious Wallace Stegner fellowship and wrote two poetry collections and numerous essays. This book explores Daniel's beliefs about nature and the purpose of creative writing. Like Thoreau, he insists, "Nature is the greater and more perfect art, the art of God. My human art is one small way of answering, in gratitude, the incalculable gift of being." As a credo, the book is moving, if not revolutionary. "I am not likely to know what the world is trying to be. It is enough, it is plenty, to be one small parcel of Nature's becoming, to see just that glimpse of the story I am capable of seeing and to write what I am capable of writing." Daniel is never as original, specific or urgent as Joy Williams in her collection of ecology essays, Ill Nature (Forecasts, Jan. 15, 2001), although his prose is vivid and thoughtful. For a memoir, Daniel's book is (perhaps intentionally) scant in detail, and what is included is often prosaic, e.g., "For some reason, fishing for flounder mattered a lot." Daniel's point of view is commendable if unremarkable. (July) Forecast: This simple book will sell best to libraries and bookstores with dedicated poetry followings. There may also be some regional interest, since Daniel mentions a number of specific locations in Oregon and California. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly

Booknews

Daniel (poet, author, and writer-in-residence at Ohio State University's Center for the Humanities) writes 100 pages of his own natural history, describing a boyhood catching small, wild animals and hunting junk on a stream in semirural Washington D.C.; working on the railroad and listening to hobo stories in eastern Oregon; and explaining his evolving belief in evolution. The pace is stroll-like, and John Daniel's development as a writer is the path running through it all. Scott Slovic, series editor, provides a portrait of the author following Daniel's memoir, and hard on the heels of that is a bibliography of Daniel's work. A sample and greatly foreshortened Danielian reflection: "The problem may not be that language falsifies experience, as I worried in my twenties, but that to one extent or another language can come to replace experience." No index. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Kirkus Reviews

Poet, essayist, and memoirist Daniel (Looking After, 1996, etc.) charts his emergence as a writer and environmentalist. Investigating his interest in and bright sympathy with the natural world, Daniel discovers glimmerings during his youth “in what were then the semirural outskirts of Washington, D.C.,” where he went fishing, observed the shivering mystery of a rumbling underground stream, and dodged hail the size of grapes. By high school, psychedelics were more his cup of tea, but he also went climbing up and down the West Coast. “It turned out that climbing, like fishing before it, had in a way prepared me for creative writing. . . . I knew what is was to labor in tense uncertainty, hoping that one move would lead me to the next.” His writing was helped along by Daniel’s study of Gary Snyder’s compact, tough, and focused poems, as well as Wallace Stegner’s grave, lively works about the western wilderness. Loren Eiseley gave Daniel a creation narrative he could accept. Aldo Leopold and Wendell Berry taught him something about being a member of the living community. William Stafford counseled him to give “sustained attention to the promptings of language” and willingly follow where they lead. In Daniel’s case, they led to exploring the whole idea of home, in particular his home in western Oregon among the trees, berries, and incandescent green. Yet writing about nature can also divide him from it, he observes: “The problem may not be that language falsifies experience . . . but that to one extent or another language can come to replace experience.” Spending time outdoors is a counterweight, as is defense of the environment, though the author urges conservationists to “more forthrightlyacknowledge our own implication in and insulation from natural resource economies.” “It is enough, it is plenty, to be a small parcel of Nature’s becoming,” writes Daniel. In this reflective and polished text, he has very much insinuated himself into the process.