Old Roads, New Stories: A Literary Series   1. Spring Spring is here, or spring is still a long ways off. It depends on when you’re reading this. But as someone who grew up in a constant rain (just 39 degrees, and the wind lashing it sideways sometimes)… as someone who didn’t see the sun most days until it drifted down below the overcast (bright out west, a reminder, before it quickly set)… to me, the spring is a pretty […] The post Two Journeys appeared first on Terrain.org ..read more

Our Gilled Forebear On uncovering a fossil of the 375-million-year-old fish Tiktaalik roseae—the mobile wrist within its fins constituted an important step in the evolution of limbs from fins and the first expansion of vertebrates onto land from water, with this wrist indicating that Tiktaalik was likely an ancestor to the more than 30,000 species of amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals living today.   Your time capsule broken open, we breathe in the Devonian, taste on our tongues the dust […] The post One Poem by Brandon Kilbourne appeared first on Terrain.org ..read more

  Part I. The Driver t was early morning, 5 a.m. or around it. I drove in my car. The fog was very thick, so thick that I saw nothing in front of me. But I knew the road since I had driven by it many times. I was driving across the bridge. The river had to be underneath, but absolutely invisible today. For some reason, I thought about deer. But in my imagination, they were in the river, not […] The post Foggy Story appeared first on Terrain.org ..read more

To be a serious student of this planet, we must be a danger to this world.   Introduction by Currents Editor Leonora Simonovis How can we incorporate meaningful and transformative conversations into our lives that challenge and disrupt power structures, and at the same time allow each of us to reclaim our wholeness? How do we prompt ourselves into action while also prioritizing our wellbeing and that of our communities? These are some of the questions and reflections Tamiko Beyer, […] The post Relearning Earth’s Language:<br> Letters Toward Liberation appeared first on Terrain.org ..read more

We are pleased to announce the winners of the 2024 Terrain.org Editor’s Prizes, selected by poetry editor Derek Sheffield, nonfiction editor Elizabeth Dodd, fiction editor Pam Houston, and editor-in-chief Simmons Buntin. One prize of $500 per awardee is given annually in poetry, nonfiction, and fiction for a contribution from the previous year by a writer of color, member of the LGBTQ+ community, woman, and/or member of another marginalized community whose contribution explores place particularly in the context of social, environmental, […] The post Karen Vargas, Christienne L. Hinz, and Kate ..read more

Like the Wildfires Out the Train Window, I was Born with a bucket of grief and an unmanageable hunger. The fire and I share pixels, atoms, an affinity for creation. In this world, planting blueberry bushes breaks my mother’s spine. If I let the world do what it wanted with me, body as livewire. Instead I drink wine with an old enemy and touch her knee while the darkness takes over. The sky hasn’t been true blue for weeks. Years. […] The post Three Poems by Zoë Fay-Stindt appeared first on Terrain.org ..read more

A bird encounter is one thing. An owl encounter is another.        have come back to New York to learn more about an owl, but at the moment it is a coyote that is on my mind. What makes the particular coyote I am searching for special, if not unique, is the patch of earth he has claimed as his territory. Not the deserts and mountains of the West that many associate with his kind, or even the […] The post Flaco: A Triptych ~ Part 3: Visitation appeared first on Terrain.org ..read more

  Paradise is Jagged By Ann Fisher-Wirth Terrapin Books | 2023 | 116 pages   he cover of Ann Fisher-Wirth’s sixth book of poems, Paradise is Jagged, is awash with color and verdure—a mass of grasses and leaves and flowers. The painting is titled “North Mississippi” and the verdure is not green but blue, red, yellow, and brown. Like the cover image, the title, Paradise is Jagged, conjures a world at odds with itself, preparing the reader for recurring themes […] The post The Broken Beauty Beyond Grief: Ann Fisher-Wirth’s<br> <em>Paradise is Jagged</em> appeared first ..read more

I will be there because I am there for the rivers. I am there to speak for the rivers.   Earth Day arth Day fell on a sunny Saturday, the first truly warm day of spring in the North Country. Daffodils swayed, kids danced barefoot in the grass, and intrepid paddlers launched canoes on small rivers, while 40 of us sat in a windowless room for a panel presentation. The crowd leaned middle-aged and supportive. To be here, you’d have […] The post Yes, and… Talking Wings, Queer Ecologies, and the Rights of Rivers appeared first on Terrain.org ..read more

  Fig Now that I’m old I’m trying to stay focused on my feet, trying not to trip so I won’t break a hip, end up in a hospital surrounded by a swarm of nurses and germs, a plastic container of apple sauce, a juice box of prunes, bleachy blankets thin as a wish. I don’t want to die like this, a kingdom of white walls, machines beeping beside me, saints appearing in my peripheral vision offering to escort me […] The post Three Poems by Dorianne Laux appeared first on Terrain.org ..read more