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My thanks go first to every poet, from King David on down, who literally
made this book possible, including those who’ve been personally supportive:
John Haines, Donald Hall, Bob Hass, Ted Hughes for a fortnight at Moortown
Cottage, Shirley Kaufman, Galway Kinnell, Stanley Kunitz, Denise Levertov
wintering annually across the green field behind my home, Gary Snyder, and
Kim Stafford for his dad.
And second, to ASLE, the Association for the Study of Literature and Envi-
ronment, and fellow-writers in this field of literature and environment, literary
critics along with a growing legion of nature writers. Many are named among
my sources.
To friends along the way, generous with their time and thought: Denise
Banker, Peggy Bowers, Alek Felstiner, Adam and Arlie Hochschild, Nick Jen-
kins, Genine Lentine, Bob Lloyd, Randy Marks, Jim McIntosh, Linda Norton,
Reeve Parker, Craig Segall, Cathy and Phred Short, Weixing Su, Murray and
Roberta Suid, William Yaryan, and first and last Scott Slovic—student-friend
two decades back, then mentor-colleague-consultant-reader and friend again
from the moment this book took root.
To those who kindly came to my aid with images: Rick Ardinger, Edward
Boenig, Chris Busa, Keith Ekiss, Sarah Felstiner, Camellia George, Joan Hen-
drickson, Jeff Henry and Paul Vee, Rozanne Knudson, David Parker, Edward
Ranney, Scott Slovic, John Suiter, Susan Thomas, John Wronoski, Josh Yiu. I’m
deeply grateful to Alice Methfessel for lending me the painting “behind” Eliza-
beth Bishop’s “Poem,” and glad that James Pennuto could restore it so well.
To Stanford friends: Rob Polhemus and Ramon Saldivar mightily chairing
our department while minding my eight years of joyous travail, Alyce Boster
genially, expertly managing permission payments, Ned Henningsen cheerfully
steering me through the early crush of text permissions, Matt Jockers endlessly
solving and salving technical cruxes, Emily Kopley keenly shooting digitals,
Scobie Puchtler classily shopping them, Bryan Wolf heartfully responding to
Acknowledgments