ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 379my crying need with a “color” subsidy from the Stanford Institute for Creativity
and the Arts, and Stanford University Libraries as ever being there for me.
To Yale University Press: Jonathan Brent my once-again acquiring editor
and squire, his assistant Annelise Finegan, John Kulka and his assistant Lindsay
Toland, Donna Anstey for advice on permissions, my editor Jennifer Banks,
who wisely and amicably saw me through, and her assistant Joseph Calamia,
Margaret Otzel, my caring production editor, Noreen O’Connor-Abel, my
copyeditor, Laura Moss Gottlieb, excellent indexer, and Justin Eichenlaub, who
ably proofread. Also to the Press’s two readers, whose graciousness and acumen
encouraged and sharpened this book.
To the places that gave me time (and terrain) for writing: Djerassi Resident
Artists Program, the Corporation of Yaddo, MacDowell Colony, Millay Colony
for the Arts, Mesa Refuge in Point Reyes, California, Jentel Artist Residency
Program in Banner, Wyoming, Stanford Humanities Center. And to friends
who helped me get there: Geoffrey Hartman, Bob Hass, Scott Slovic.
To the magazines that harbored and editors who tended essay-chapters:
Parthenon West Review (David Holler, Chad Sweeney), Denver Quarterly (Bin
Ramke), ISLE / Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (Scott
Slovic), Weekly Standard (Philip Terzian), American Poetry Review (Steve Berg,
Elizabeth Scanlon), Iowa Review (David Hamilton), Michigan Quarterly Review
(Larry Goldstein), Journal of American Studies (Tbilisi, Georgia—Shelley
Fisher-Fishkin), Foreign Literature Studies (Wuhan, China—Scott Slovic), Seattle
Review(Andrew Feld), World Literature in Translation (Daniel Simon), Jacket
(John Tranter).
To places that hosted presentations along the way: Stanford Sierra Camp,
Stanford Quest Scholars Program, Stanford Humanities Center, Stanford Law
and Environment Society, Stanford Alumni Association, Association for the
Study of Literature and Environment, University of Nevada at Reno, Denver
University, Sempervirens Fund, Puget Sound Community School, Sun Valley
Writers Conference, Tor House Foundation, and of course the Stanford English
Department curriculum.
Last and not least but most, to Mary Lowenthal Felstiner, who stood by me
from start to finish while pursuing her own writing and teaching. Her spirit and
savvy saved me countless times, from idiot moments like “I think I hit the wrong
key” all the way to “Why am I writing this book?” In acknowledgments for
my Paul Celan books, love poems to hiswife gave me phrases I could translate
toward mine. Now I borrow from William Carlos Williams’s conjugal love
poem,Asphodel, That Greeny Flower: “my sweet... My heart rouses / thinking
to bring you news.. .” It isdifficult to get the news from poems, the environ-
mental news. Mary has kept me sane and true for the trying.