Thoughts on Weeds

My father has always hated crabgrass, and my mother always assigned me the chore of pulling weeds from the stone patio in preparation for a picnic. Aside from me not wanting to do chores, it never occured to me that removing weeds was pointless and slightly derranged, possibly even wrong, and definately affecting my point of view towards wild flowers, although I still love picking dandelions and placing them behind my ear. Nancy Gift's book A Weed By Any Other Name sheds light on the upside of weeds and the downsides to getting rid of them with pesticides. I'm not quite sure of the product, but I do remember my father spraying the edges of the lawn for either bugs or weeds, and my mother telling me not to walk outside barefoot or I would drag "it" into the house, along with my cat Gracy who was banned to being inside for the moment. When Gift addressed the issues of pesticides in her novel, I was shocked to hear that there was an herbicide called paraquat that is linked to farmer suicide (146). Since my dad grew up on a farm, and two of his brothers still farm on their own land, I was very disgusted by this fact, not to mention worried about people using pesticides in general. I plan to research more specific cases of the relationship between paraquat and suicide. Gift's examination of astroturf was also something for me to think about since I have played soccer for about 20 years. She writes, "I still think it is ironic that we spend a lot of money and resources trying to mimic the natural surface that humans have run on for millennia" (127). There is something about the human need to imitate and create a space of visual perfection that is interesting, but speaking as an athlete, I know that there are also feelings of pride linked to having such a beautiful place to play. At the upper levels, play turns into competition, of course. I think exploring this topic further will serve as a good essay prompt. The main component of Gift's book is this: tolerance. She says, "Tolerance implies dealing with something distasteful, but it is also necessary in even the most deep and passionate love. Perhaps tolerance means that when I dislike something in a loved one, I acknowledge that there might be a defect in my vision." I love this quote because it can be applied to all things, not just weeds, and it addresses the various ways of examining a controversial topic. Perhaps there is a defect in our vision, as a people in general, that we need perfect lawns and fields. Perhaps we are reflecting our own flaws onto nature and attempting to fix the disatisfaction we find within our inner beings. We are bullying the weeds.

A Review of Poets on Place

Among the writers that were assigned from Poets on Place by w.t. pfefferle, Mark Strand and Dave Smith were my favorite poets, which is unusual because I am usually attracted to the voices of female nature poets. It doesn't matter what gender speaks to me, because when Smith says "All the cold morning light does is leave/us standing," he's taken my breath away. In another moving line Strand ruminates, "I moved like a dark star, drifting over the drowned." Both of these poems take place during the morning, which is compelling when I attempt to understand my attraction to them. I usually find myself writing in the morning on a free day, when I have my coffee of course. Everything is quiet, still, peaceful. The birds are heard at that time of day. Each poem is also an instance of looking into another kind of world, whether by a different time period as in Smith's poem "Gaines Mill Battlefield," or Strand's poem "A Morning," which explores water/the sea as a separate world. In my poetry, I tend to remember a place and my relationships with other people in that location. What was I doing there? What occured there? What was discussed? What kind of pain or joy did I feel? For example, in the past I wrote about my family relationships, and I explored them by examining the outdoors surrounding my adolescent home. I have depicted the hard-wood floors inside the house as a source of pain and isolation, the raspberry bushes as a source of nostalgia and mothering, the stone walls as a representation of my father's personality. Nature, landscape, and environment run together as inspirations for my writing. It comes easily to me and I feel like I must always have an image or metaphor from nature. If I don't have something nature-like in my poetry, it doesn't feel like mine. Sometimes it becomes boring, feels overworked; it is difficult to come up with new ways to discuss nature poetically without being overly romantic. Furthermore, I often find myself writing about nature inside at my computer after I've experienced a place, that way I can meditate on what I've seen, felt, heard, and experienced. As many of the poets from the anthology discussed, place often comes from the imagination. While I'm at my computer and not immersed in the place, it is quite possible my memory has already altered that place. But I don't feel guilty about that because I feel that I'm sharing a truth or making a discovery about my identity. Strand says, "Our identity is in the way we use language, not necessarily the place from which we come." I underlined this urgently because I agreed with him. Our poetry is made through our interpretation of place, not its reality. Or maybe the place from which we come is always changing, and only minute details/themes will follow.

Attack of the Squirrels

I walked up to Pete, who was nestled in the grass. He was scared and jumped in the pond. His bright, crayola orange feet rose from beneath him; his mouth opened in a constant quack; his black tail waddled into the water, and a black poof was exuded from his tail after he jumped in. Hmm, wonder what that was. After getting so close, I notice that the back of his head gleams a shellac of teal feathers. I decided it was time to research some duck info. Pete is a Mallard duck, specifically a Drake, which is a brightly colored male duck, just as I have described. The female is known as the hen, and is brown in color. No hen here; poor Pete. Black poof is still a mystery. I'm sitting on the lone bench next to the tree, today, and a grayish-brown squirrel skitters around me; he stops, and his right black eye glares at me, but then he quickly runs past. I have to admit I was a little bit scared, but it seems that these animals reciprocate the fear. I feel like I am invading their space, but isn't it mine as well? There is a pile of sticks in front of me as though someone wanted to clean up, or build a fire-pit, which I'm sure is not permitted here. There is name-tag litter by the pile of sticks, how ironic. If I could identify each person who littered, I would make them pick up after themselves; I could change the world in that motherly role. I'll leave the name anonymous for the sake of blogging. One squirrel scampers up the tree, stops, stares at me, and I can see his nose wiggle, his stomach pant. I can't be sure if it is the same one, or if it is even a boy. I'm beginning to see how the patriarchy of the English language has shaped my writing. I need to stop turning to "him." Pete has tucked his body into the grass again where no one will bother "him." I am suddenly surrounded by squirrels; three grays chase the black one in circles in a game of territorial tag. Maybe it is time to go.

Duck named Pete

The duck is in the pond! I've named him Silvester, but my boyfriend think he's more like a Pete. The grass is slightly longer and there is a stick in the pond that could be mistaken for a snake. All else seems unchanged. Right before dark, the pond reflects a building on campus. A red structure is a blurry ghost on the surface of the water. Ryan, my boyfriend, says, "Give me the camera--I am going to capture nature," as though we were trapping a lightning bug in a jar. He snaps some pictures of the birds hopping around. Earlier he was convinced that one was staring at him. I am reminded of the day he said, You want to be a bird don't you, and think to myself yes. Perhaps I am another version of that bird exploring the weekend's buildup of whiskers on his face: cheeks covered in red and brown. The duck lets out a sharp quack! after I am done chasing his image in circles as he swims. He dips his head underwater, nuzzling. As he moves, the water follows in a triangular path like the shape of his tail feathers. C'mon, it's you and me, Pete, do something," Ryan says, wishing for a spectacle. When the duck moves, he says, See, told you his name was Pete, insinuating that he's got the correct name for the duck. Kids riding bikes break the silence and run towards the duck in exitement that is excrutiating to my ears. I notice that they have means to harass and control poor Pete. A girl calls it ducky, and wants to jump in after it. She then asks why small ducks are yellow, but she's thinking of baby chics. Always a need to call an animal our own, to disturb the one that travels alone peacefully among its own triangle. Always a need to name an animal to identify a spec of commonality and communicate.

Frick Park Reflections

One thing I have come to love about Pittsburgh is the ability to retreat into nature while remaining in the city. On Saturday, my boyfriend and I walked from my apartment building on Murray Avenue to Frick Park's entrance on Beechwood Blvd, into vast fields and open sky. I thought the newly cut grass would be screaming with bugs, but we laid there relatively undisturbed. We kicked the soccer ball around for awhile (soccer is a passion for both of us), and then laid in the sun. There was a singular dandelion in front of me, maybe the only one that survived the mower's blade on this hillside. Speaking of dandelion's, I began reading Nancy Gift's A Weed by Any Other Name, and I came across the passage Laura formerly mentioned in class. Gift paraphrased Richard Louv: "he reminds us that immersing oursevles in wild spaces fosters creativity, the sense of place, and the confidence that we need as adults" (xii). For me, wild speaks to thinking outside of the box. It is not, or should not always be assigned negative connotations. Paying attention to everything that grows around us can certainly maintain a knowledge of place, history, origin and heritage of a plant and/or person. Confidence is an intriguing concept, but I agree that plants instill confidence. I ponder my childhood: I remember planting pumpkins when I was a child in a plot in my neighbor's yard. Perhaps we stopped doing this because of age and other activities, but doing so had fostered not only the growth of a living thing, but human relationships as well, including my parents, siblings, and neighbor. Since then, I feel that I have lost the ability to grow a thing, that confidence, and also the space and permission; we barely speak to our neighbor anymore. Planting a living thing teaches responsibility, nurturing, hard work and respect for the environment.