the where of it

calling it by its right name

• Posted by Summer Wood on March 9th, 2009 filed in books
• 1 Comment »

Once in a while, I’ll stumble upon a book that resonates so deeply for me I wonder if the author climbed inside my brain, took note of my desires, and brought them to life.

HOME GROUND:  Language for an American Landscape, edited by Barry Lopez and Debra Gwartney and published by Trinity University Press, is such a book.  A lexicon of terms Americans have used to describe physical place, it is so beautifully realized that it has quickly landed on my shelf of favorites.

A favorite lexicon?  Seriously, how geeky can you get?

Not geeky at all, in this case.  Lopez hit upon the brilliant idea of mustering an army of accomplished writers to “define” the eight-hundred-plus words – some regional and vernacular, others drawn from the vocabulary of science or history – that make up this book.   It’s serious work, taken seriously.  Not a single of the entries I’ve come across has been less than scholarly in its precise description of the landform it names.

But these are writers, remember.  Writers like Antonya Nelson, who claims “Route 66” as her home place, and Linda Hogan, and the poet Robert Hass, and Gretel Ehrlich and Charles Frazier (of Cold Mountain fame).  The opportunities for metaphor the terms present are not lost on these people.  So every definition expands from the clear and precise description to a unique literary take on that landform.  Often graphic, usually informed by history, sometimes humorous, and once in a while entering the territory of how-the-hell-could-they-know-that, these are definitions on steroids.

Take this one, chosen at random.  It’s Franklin Burroughs (home place: Bowdoinham, Maine), defining mima mound:

Mima mounds are sometimes called pimple mounds and vice versa, but the two formations are geographically and geologically distinct.  Mima mounds derive their name from the Mima Prairie, near Olympia, Washington, where they abound.  They occur in dry, grassy upland areas of the West.  They are up to six feet high and up to 30 feet across.  They are often attributed to the subterranean exertions of pocket gophers, over many generations.  Writing from southern California, Alfred Wallace advises filling a shallow pan with eggs, lying on their sides and with their axes unaligned, then pouring fine sand into the pan until the eggs are half buried.  This, he says, “gives a fair representation” of a mima plain.  Such plains are colloquially called hog wallows.  One presumes some poetic soul saw the low mounds and thought of recumbent swine.

Not all the terms are obscure or exotic, like that one.  The majority of the words I either know well (glacier, cave, lake, woodlot) or find reasonably familiar.  And yet every entry enriches my understanding of the American landscape, and of the waves of people who have come to know it.

The book is a joy to read not just for its lively text.  As a physical object it’s a pleasure as well.  Oversized (but, thank you Trinity University Press, not overpriced), it runs the definitions and accompanying line drawings down the inside half of the page, and reserves the remainder for brief and graceful excerpts from literature exemplifying their use.  Here’s one I like a lot, adjacent to the entry for “lick”:

That sunset walk across Brooklyn Bridge doesn’t hold a candle to crossing Lick Fork Creek on a one-man swaying bridge.  Fine dining will make you fat, but fresh butter on cornbread will make you cry. (Chris Offut, No Heroes)

The value of the book, for me, lies less in its instructive qualities than in its ability to engender a deeper seeing and more thorough appreciation of the land we inhabit. Now that I know what a resurgence is – “the point of emergence for a stream that has been flowing underground” – I don’t need to be in a hurry to use the word; but it makes me think of how San Cristobal Creek disappears underground somewhere up around La Sherry’s place and comes to light again lower down by Darren’s horses.  My writing (to say nothing of my life) is made richer by observations like these.