Essays On The Tempest

[Martta Borromeo]

Earlyin the beautiful mosaic book of essays, poetry, opinion pieces, journals, and contemplations, Terry Tempest Williams (2019) suggests that Erosion: Essays on Undoing is really a book of questions. One set of questions in the book, from an interview with Tim DeChristopher, an environmental activist, is an appropriate place to begin:

What are the stories that we tell? You know, what are the stories that move us forward culturally? What are the stories that keep us in place? What are the stories that actually perpetuate myths of a dominant culture or the subjugation of women? (p. 111)

And this is where the crux of the book as a more-than-human project becomes so evident. Williams is asking what happens when we decenter ourselves as individual human beings, and begin viewing ourselves as part of a relational and interconnected whole.

If we are to flourish as a species, an erosion of belief will be necessary, that says we are not the center of the universe but a dynamic part of an expanding and contracting future that celebrates and collaborates with uncertainty. (Williams, 2019, p. 249)

At the risk of too many quotes from the book, I will bring this to a close. I checked this book out from the library but see myself heading to the bookstore to buy several copies. I suspect this is a book I will reread and I find myself wanting to get it in as many hands as possible.

Please, do not take this the wrong way Barbara, but what you said made me laugh. Only because of the familiarity of what you say re your linear analytic mind. I suspect that, much like I said to borkali, there is much in here that would speak to you. Much of it is more concrete, especially the essays re activism.

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Terry Tempest Williams's fierce, spirited, and magnificent essays are a howl in the desert. She sizes up the continuing assaults on America's public lands and the erosion of our commitment to the open space of democracy. She asks: How do we find the strength to not look away from all that is breaking our hearts?

We know the elements of erosion: wind, water, and time. They have shaped the spectacular physical landscape of our nation. Here, Williams bravely and brilliantly explores the many forms of erosion we face: of democracy, science, compassion, and trust. She examines the dire cultural and environmental implications of the gutting of Bear Ears National Monument--sacred lands to Native Peoples of the American Southwest; of the undermining of the Endangered Species Act; of the relentless press by the fossil fuel industry that has led to a panorama in which oil rigs light up the horizon. And she testifies that the climate crisis is not an abstraction, offering as evidence the drought outside her door and, at times, within herself.

These essays are Williams's call to action, blazing a way forward through difficult and dispiriting times. We will find new territory--emotional, geographical, communal. The erosion of desert lands exposes the truth of change. What has been weathered, worn, and whittled away is as powerful as what remains. Our undoing is also our becoming.

Erosion is a book for this moment, political and spiritual at once, written by one of our greatest naturalists, essayists, and defenders of the environment. She reminds us that beauty is its own form of resistance, and that water can crack stone.

The Tempest: Critical Essays traces the history of Shakespeare's controversial late romance from its early reception (and adaptation) in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to the present. The volume reprints influential criticism, and it also offers eight originalessays which study The Tempest from a variety of contemporary perspectives, including cultural materialism, feminism, deconstruction, performance theory, and postcolonial studies. Unlike recent anthologies about The Tempest which reprint contemporary articles along with a few new essays, this volume contains a mixture of old and new materials pertaining to the play's use in the theater and in literary history.

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A prize of $1,000 and publication in North American Review is given annually for an essay. Lyric essays, memoir-style essays, and literary journalism are eligible. Toni Jensen will judge. Using only the online submission system, submit an essay of 500 to 10,000 words with a $23 entry fee, which includes an issue of North American Review, by April 1. All entries are considered for publication. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Williams, author of about a dozen creative nonfiction books, along with collections of poetry and essays, will read from her works Thursday, Dec. 1, at 4 p.m. in the Hope Room of the Higgins Welcome Center, 45 Upper College Road. The event is free and open to the public and will also be available online. Registration is required.

Along with reading and discussing her work, Williams will take part in a conversation with Jen Riley, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Riley, who helped bring Williams to campus, has published several papers on Williams as part of her research on writers who seek to create positive social change in our communities.

Terry Tempest Williams is arguably one of Utah's most influential living authors. In her essays, poetry, and memoirs, she uses her distinctive voice to argue for a deeply personal connection between land, politics, and the individual human body.

Ms. Williams taught at the University of Utah, Dartmouth College, Colby University, and currently teaches at Harvard Divinity School. She is the recipient of numerous awards for her writing and activism, has spoken at conferences on topics as widely-separated from one another as outdoor recreation, genocide, and religious tolerance. She continues to write and publish prodigiously.

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