"Look at it this way"

From the classic 'Crossing Open Ground' “I think of two landscapes- one outside the self, the other within.  The external landscape is the one we see-not only the line and color of the land and its shading at different times of the day, but also its plants and animals in season, its weather, its geology… If you walk up, say, a dry arroyo in the Sonoran Desert you will feel a mounding and rolling of sand and silt beneath your foot that is distinctive. You will anticipate the crumbling of the sedimentary earth in the arroyo bank as your hand reaches out, and in that tangible evidence you will sense the history of water in the region. Perhaps a black-throated sparrow lands in a paloverde bush… the smell of the creosote bush….all elements of the land, and what I mean by “the landscape.” The second landscape I think of is an interior one, a kind of projection within a person of a part of the exterior landscape. Relationships in the exterior landscape include those that are named a...

A collection of essays by the master: Barry Lopez is coming on May 2022. This will be an essential read. Description from the publishers. An urgent, deeply moving final work of nonfiction from the National Book Award-winning author of Arctic Dreams and Horizon, a literary icon whose writing, fieldwork, and mentorship inspired generations of writers and activists. An ardent steward of the land, fearless traveler, and unrivaled observer of nature and culture, Barry Lopez died after a long illness on Christmas Day 2020, following a summer wildfire that consumed much of what was dear to him in his home place and the community around it--a tragic reminder of the climate change of which he'd long warned. At once a cri de coeur and a memoir of both pain and wonder, this remarkable collection of essays adds indelibly to Lopez's legacy, and includes previously unpublished works, some written in the months before his death. They unspool memories both personal and political, among them t...

I've spoken and blogged about this book many times, and you can now listen to extracts from it on Radio 4 as it has been selected, around 35 years after its first UK publication as the 'Book of the Week'. A heads-up that, to my delight, Barry Lopez's masterpiece Arctic Dreams (1986) will be Book of the Week on @BBCRadio4 this week, starting 09.45am today. The book––and the writer––that made me a writer. Barry passed away in December this year. https://t.co/Eo8vKQKIV0 — Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) June 21, 2021 Barry Lopez is someone whose work has been important to me throughout my career. Catch up with the episodes here. In Episode One of Arctic Dreams Barry Lopez reflects on his first encounters with the surprisingly varied and resilient inhabitants of the polar north and on modern man’s vexed relationship with this beguiling continent. In his breath-taking natural, social and cultural history of the Arctic, Lopez reveals the essential mystery and beauty of ...

  " Everything is held together with stories. That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion." Barry Lopez I heard yesterday evening via  Robert MacFarlane  that the author  Barry Lopez had died on Christmas Day at his house in Oregon: somewhere he and his wife were renting after the house he had lived in for decades had been affected by wildfires earlier in the year, which had also tragically destroyed a building containing an archive of his writing and documents. Barry Lopez passed away yesterday evening, making his last great journey. His work –– graceful, meticulous, ethical, compassionate, from Arctic Dreams to Common Ground to Horizon & far beyond –– shaped & will go on to shape countless lives, hearts & landscapes... 1/9 pic.twitter.com/SgvTZS9v0N — Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) December 26, 2020 I have blogged about Barry's writing numerous times here, and on my other blogs. I bought his 'Arctic Dreams ' book back in e...