Wild Heart: The Politics Of Place with Terry Tempest Williams

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How we relate to the land and its living creatures is literally a question of life and death in this age of alienation from the natural world. For those with a strong connection, says this deeply sensitive naturalist, "the passion that we feel is naturally translated to a politics of place - standing our ground in the places that we love." Environmental politics becomes a matter of sensual passion rather than political correctness in this rich, colorful mosaic of thoughts on wildness, landscape, animals, and humans. It sparkles with gems of insight mined from Williams' own profound sense of belonging in nature and includes the voice of the late Edward Abbey, maverick environmentalist and friend of Williams, in a short audio excerpt from the New Dimensions archives. (hosted by Justine Willis Toms)

Bio

Terry Tempest Williams is a naturalist, environmentalist, and award-winning author. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and her work is widely taught and anthologized around the world. In 2014, on the 50th Anniversary of the Wilderness Act, Ms. Williams received the Sierra Club’s John Muir Award honoring a distinguished record of leadership in American conservation. She currently is the writer in residence at Harvard Divinity School and divides her time between Cambridge, Massachusetts and Castle Valley, Utah.

Terry Tempest Williams is the author of many books including:

• Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place (Pantheon 1991)
• Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert (Vintage Books 2002)
• An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field (Vintage Books 1995)
• Leap (Vintage 2001)
• The Open Space of Democracy (The Orion Society 2004)
• Finding Beauty in a Broken World (Pantheon 2008)
• When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice (Sarah Crichton Books: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2012)
• The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks(Sarah Crichton Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2016)
• Erosion: Essays of Undoing (Sarah Crichton Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2019)

To learn more about the work of Terry Tempest Williams go to terrytempestwilliams.com

Topics Explored in This Dialogue

• What is our “unspoken hunger” for a connection to what is other
• What are eight questions for world leaders to consider about the future
• What is an answer to the “jobs vs. environment” question
• What is the village in Mexico that is visited by 23 million Monarch butterflies
• The success of the Greenbelt tree-planting project in Kenya
• Why the bear is a mythological model for humans
• What Edward Abbey had to say—in a rare tape excerpt of his own voice
• How “poetics of place” becomes “politics of place” becomes “erotics of place”
• What is the Wild Card plan of political action

Hosted by: Justine Willis Toms       Interview Date: 12/30/1994      Program Number: 2460

Music Included

From Album: Canyon
Artist: Paul Winter
1985 Living Music Records LP #LMR-6, CD #LD0006

From Album: Spanish Angel
Artist: Paul Winter Consort
1993 Earth Music Productions #LD0027

From Album: Prayer for the Wild Things
Artist: Paul Winter & The Earth Band
Living Music #LD 0028 or #CT 06759