Sowell Collection

Since I am neglecting this blog, I've decided to post some of my writing assignments and exercises and just general thoughts.
This is a report on the Sowell Collection at the Southwest Special Collections Library.
In Barry Lopez’s essay “The Passing Wisdom of Birds,” he discusses two small steps people can take to restore a communal relationship between humans and the land. One is to assemble a collection of Natural History. With this thought in mind, for this project I chose the James Sowell Collection to study at the Southwest Collection Library. Beyond Barry Lopez’s advice of gathering books about Natural History, its subtitle intrigued me. The Sowell collections deals with work about Literature, Community, and the Natural World. I value connectedness and one of the greatest thrills for me is to see how things are interwoven, linked, fated, and connected. I wanted to learn what connections existed between literature, community, and the natural world, especially since all three areas are subjects I feel passionate about. The brief description I read didn’t offer any answers. I didn’t expect it to—instead the Sowell collection pointed me in the direction of several authors. The Sowell Collections hosts work, drafts, research notebooks, diaries, calendars, photographs, computer files, and film from many different authors. The authors in the Sowell Collection are Rick Bass, Max Crawford, David James Duncan, Gretel Ehrlich, William Kittredge, Barry Lopez, Walk McDonald, Bill McKibben, Susan Brind Morrow, Doug Peacock, David Quammen, Pattiann Rogers, Sandra Scofield, Annick Smith. The work of these authors is chosen, because they are seen to be part of a communal undertaking of the examination of our world and our place within. I like this idea and I like that these authors take it farther to explore our place in the world not as possessors, but as companions. They are trying to find “what constitutes a just relationship between human society and physical place.” This summer, I want to take time and read their thoughts and learn from their experiences.