Hello, Radio Readers – I’m Jane Holwerda from Dodge City, Kansas – and you know why I’m here –to shout out our 2023 Fall Read, which starts now! Our theme, “Wisdom of the Natural World,” resonates for us, right? Living and working on the High Plains, surrounded by, at times immersed in, the phenomena of the physical world – plants, animals, weather, landscapes. From our proximity to this wealth of nature, what experience, knowledge and capacity for good judgement do we garner? This is the type of question we are primed to explore, Radio Readers, through our 2023 Fall Read – with essays, fiction, memoir and poetry. And what better season to explore our relationship with nature than autumn, that most transitional of all seasons, situated between abundant and dormant.
Our conversations start with a collection of essays, Braiding Sweetgrass, published in 2013. Author Robin Wall Kimmerer is a botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. In short essays focused on flora and fauna of the mid- and southwest regions of the United States, Kimmerer weaves connections between ecology, family history, and culture. Besides showing the ways where we live inform who we become, Kimmerer shares a compassionate perspective that natural phenomena are gifts to be celebrated rather than commodified. Richard Powers’ 2021 novel Bewilderment shows a father and son grieving the death of wife and mother. When living, the mother was an environmentalist, and in her death becomes emblematic of Mother Earth herself, a figure decimated and dying from policies and practices prioritizing profit and disregarding science. In contrast, the connectedness of father, son, and mother, even through death and environmental disaster, suggests possibilities for transcending physical limitations. Science fiction or a blueprint for the future? Hmm.
In the final book of our 2023 Fall Read, the memoir Running with Sherman, author Christopher McDougall recounts his family’s efforts to help and heal a rescued donkey by training with him for racing. In this story, bipeds and quadrupeds find their sense of place in the world magnificently expanded through mutuality and shared purpose. As to how this happens, McDougall writes, “You’ve got one hope of getting to the finish line, and that’s to forget about dominance and ego and discover the power of sharing and caring, compassion and cooperation.”
Oh, and poetry! To complement or contrast ideas and perspectives offered by book leaders for Sweetgrass, Bewilderment and Running with Sherman, tune in on Tuesdays and Thursdays to hear how poets evoke and distill wisdom of the natural world. If you’d like to contribute to Radio readers Poetry Pop-ups, or to the books, check out details posted at the Radio Readers Book Club page on High Plains Public Radio’s website.
This is it, friends: the start of our Radio Readers Fall 2023 Read: Wisdom of the Natural World. Tune in to HPPR BookBytes Mondays through Fridays early mornings and late afternoons. BookBytes are also available on demand at HPPR’s website and at The Radio Readers Facebook page. And mark your calendars for Sunday, November 12, the date of our live on-air discussion.
For High Plains Public Radio, I’m Jane Holwerda, from Dodge City, Kansas.
