Review of Make It True: Poetry From Cascadia

May 31, 2015

Splabman

Bless Mary Ann Moore for her wonderful review of the new anthology of Cascadia Poetry Make It True. Dig:

In Lowther’s poem, Nuu-chah-nulth, Good Advice, the decolonization of “my mind,” aligns very nicely with co-editor Paul Nelson’s introductory words about the “wilderness of the mind.”

Lowther writes: “I’ve been advised not to study / French or Spanish, rather / to stand still, make roots from words, / take in the language of the place / I’ve made my home.”

Standing still, listening, observing, witnessing are all practices of the eco-conscious poets in Cascadia. They “take in the language of the place.”

Cascadia is a bioregion spanning from Cape Mendocino in the south to Mount Logan in the north. It is that “bioregionalism, or the effort to reimagine ourselves and the places where we live in terms of ecology, sustainability and harmony with the natural systems” that inspired the four editors in the book’s creation.

The review first ran in the Vancouver Sun and also ran in the Edmonton Journal.

More info on the book here: http://www.leafpress.ca/Make_It_True/Make_It_True.htm

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What end does politics serve? Surely it must serve ends beyond itself. Why seek greater bioregional autonomy? For self-determination. Yes, but what purpose in turn shall that value serve? None some may say, it’s self-justifying. But then it becomes an absolute unto itself which can be used to justify many different things, some questionable. Why not come right out at the beginning and say what you’re really for?
The primary purpose of seeking greater bioregional identity and autonomy is to serve the life of the place and its people as a whole. Indeed, the primary purpose of Politics is to serve the life of the place and its people on many levels in an equitable and sustainable way.