Shorewords: A Collection of American Women's Coastal Writings

by Susan A. C. Rosen

Overview

Emily Dickinson, Lucille Clifton, Rachel Carson, and Gretel Ehrlich: They hail from different regions, employ widely divergent writing styles, and are not known primarily as nature writers. Yet in Shorewords, Susan A. C. Rosen has compiled an imaginative and beautifully balanced anthology of selections from these and more than forty other important writers connected by their love for the coastline. Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Low Tide," E. Annie Proulx's "Cast Away," Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Naomi," and Ursula Le Guin's "Text" are among the diverse pieces that reveal the writers' common fascination with the people and places at water's edge. Organized thematically, Shorewords reflects women's experiences of living along the coast through a wide range of material, including short fiction, poetry, and excerpts from novels and memoirs. All reveal the rich response to shorelines women writers have expressed—and continue to express—in poetry and prose.

Includes: Jennifer Ackerman * Nancy Allen * Gloria Anzaldúa * Kerry Neville Bakken * Dorothy Balano * Andrea Barrett * Doris Betts * Kate Braverman * Mary Louisa Burtch Brewster * Mary Parker Buckles * Rachel L. Carson * Kate Chopin * Amy Clampitt * Lucille Sayles Clifton * Wanda Coleman * Rebecca Blaine Harding Davis * Jan DeBlieu * Emily Dickinson * Joan Didion * Annie Dillard * Gretel Ehrlich * Anita Endrezze * Diane P. Freedman * Tess Gallagher * Susan Glaspell * Mary Hood * Cynthia Huntington * Sarah Orne Jewett * Mary Karr * Susan Kenney * Carolyn Kizer * Ursula K. Le Guin * Denise Levertov * Anne Morrow Lindbergh * Nancy Lord * Sandra McPherson * Edna St. Vincent Millay * Marianne Moore * Ruth Moore * Sena Jeter Naslund * Gloria Naylor * Mary Oliver * Elizabeth Stuart Phelps * E. Annie Proulx * May Sarton * Elizabeth Spencer * Harriet Beecher Stowe * May Swenson * Sara Teasdale * Celia Thaxter

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813922348
Publisher:	University of Virginia Press
Publication date:	10/29/2003
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.25(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Susan A. C. Rosen, Professor of English at Anne Arundel Community College, is the author of numerous articles on American literature and the environment.

Table of Contents

	Preface	xi
	Caught in the Ecotone	1
	Naomi	7
	Mara	9
	Out of the Sea	12
	The Outside	37
	The Woman Who Raised Goats	47
	El otro Mexico	48
	Fall, 1855, the settlement called Whatcom	50
	Growing Up Coastal	55
	From Among the Isles of Shoals	59
	A White Heron	65
	Memory of Cape Cod	74
	Impression: Fog off the Coast of Dorset	75
	From The Liars' Club	75
	Small Craft Warnings	92
	Vigil	104
	Observers and Naturalists Explore the Marginal World	119
	The Marginal World	123
	Channelled Whelk	128
	The Outer Bar	134
	Singled Out	135
	Warning	135
	At the Shore	136
	Santa Rosa	137
	The Edge	141
	Prologue, from Notes from the Shore	145
	Osprey, from Notes from the Shore	148
	The Shore	160
	Intertidal Zone	165
	Edge Effect	167
	Love and Desire in the Littoral Zone	171
	Wild Nights--Wild Nights!	175
	I started Early--took my Dog	175
	From The Story of Avis	176
	Sea Longing	186
	Woman on Sand	186
	The Mapmaker's Daughter	188
	First Things First	189
	Ocean Water Absorbs Red, Orange, and Yellow Light	199
	The Littoral Zone	201
	Choosing the Coast	211
	Inland	215
	On the Edge	216
	A Subject of the Waves	217
	Beach Glass	219
	From Mama Day	221
	Cast Away	223
	A Rolling Hitch	228
	Bebe Sellars: May 1968	238
	Old Christmas	247
	Working along the Shorelines	253
	From The Weir	257
	Quiet Days in Malibu	265
	3 A.M. Kitchen: My Father Talking	275
	Boat Ride	276
	Putting Up Boat	282
	blessing the boats	293
	crabbing	293
	On the Edge: Madness, Illness, Seeking, and Healing	295
	From The Awakening	299
	On the Dunes	302
	To the Sea	303
	Exiled	303
	Burial	304
	Low-Tide	305
	The Fish	305
	A Grave	307
	Preface, from The House by the Sea	308
	Tuesday, October 7th, from The House by the Sea	312
	Texts	314
	Sailing	316
	The Great Blue Heron	332
	From The Salt Line	334
	A Whale of a Different Color--Melville and the Movies: The Great White Whale and Free Willy	343
	Beyond	351
	A Season on Maui	355
	On this wondrous sea	358
	Exultation is the going	359
	December 11, 1912. (At home in Herring Gut, known to the better element as Port Clyde.)	359
	Back in the U.S.A.	365
	The Cabin Boy	370
	Notes on Authors	379
	Acknowledgments	389

Editorial Reviews

"Rosen collects dozens of pieces expressing the praise, wonder, fear, and longing that being on the shore can inspire.. [A] fitting celebration of life along the water's edge, and a good choice for anyone heading to the beach. "—author of Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher