A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia
There’s been a lot online in the past few years about how Appalachia is more diverse than outsiders (and some insiders) realize. Usually this is in connection with human demographics, such as race, religion, sexuality, education, and so on. Released in 2019 by The University Press of Georgia, A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia explores the ecological diversity of our mountains. Unlike most natural history guides, however, it also incorporates poetry and art to showcase sixty species indigenous to the area.
The Southern Appalachians, stretching from the Cumberland Plateau east to the Blue Ridge mountains, is one of the most biodiverse habitats on earth. A Literary Field Guide to the Southern Appalachians, edited by Rose McLarney and Laura-Gray Street, divides the flora and fauna into seven sections: trees and plants, mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians, fish, invertebrates, and fungi. It opens with the American chestnut, a tree that echoes so much of Appalachian history and is a warning bell for the entire Earth. Once prolific (the notes say “about one in every four trees in the Appalachians was a chestnut” when European settlers arrived [p. 17]), the chestnut was affected by an invasive pathogenic fungus that has caused functional extinction. While saplings do grow, they never reach adulthood. The accompanying poem by Anna Lena Phillips Bell, “Flowers and Are,” singsongs, “Commonarchy, come and be crowned again, wear / leaf upon leaf, know sap flow and signal (p. 18).” One of my favorite spots on a ridge behind my family home is where the twisted trunk of a fallen American chestnut lies.
I was happy to see the southern flying squirrel make an appearance as well. It has “a fleshy membrane, called a patagium, connecting its wrists to its ankles. Using this membrane, it can take a running jump and glide through the air” (p. 81). Davis McComb’s poem, “Flying Squirrels,” opens so beautifully: “Then even that falls away, the stars sizzling out / one by one and a matte-black mountain rotating hugely. / The squirrels never do not make me gasp” (p. 81). A couple times when I was a kid, flying squirrels made their way into our house. They leapt at us from the top of the water heater in the basement and left tiny fairy footprints in the office after getting into printer ink.
The “Natural History Editor’s Introduction” by L. L. Gaddy also provides information on various major habitats, human history in the region, and a geologic history, where I learned that Roan Mountain, the mountain I grew up on, has rock that is among the oldest ever dated at 1.8 billion years old.
Aside from being a wealth of knowledge that I forced myself to mete out like rich chocolate, A Literary Field Guide to the Southern Appalachians is beautiful with a three-piece bind, foil on the cover, and—my favorite—a ribbon bookmark. It’s the perfect gift for anyone who loves Appalachia, ecology, and poetry.
