ALL LOVE,

Border Press Books, Sewanee, TN, announces the publication of All Love, by Diane Marquart Moore, a volume of poems about relatives and relationships, death and dying, illness and recovery, and includes a special section about a three-week sojourn in Mexico. Also featured are prose poems and excerpts from “Everyday Journal IV” about ordinary and extraordinary daily happenings, as well as observations about present-day social issues.

Reviewers celebrate Moore’s new book:

“Mindful of Diane Moore’s ‘other life’ as a Deacon in the Episcopal Church, ‘It is truly right and just’ to celebrate these poems that beat with such a steady pulse our hearts, and by extension, our spirits flourish. Deeply faith-based in her own way but accessible to all of ‘other’ or indeed those of no faiths at all, her words ‘extend to infinity’ (see title poem, which, as all good poems strive to do, means much with fewest means employed), help us negotiate ‘the boundary between twilight and dark,’ and are a sturdy ‘cane’ to rely on as we wend our way through the challenging landscape of this tome.” 

- Stuart Friebert, author of Decanting: Selected and New Poems, founder and director of the Oberlin Creative Writing Program and co-founder of Field Magazine, the Field Translation Series, and the Oberlin College Press.-

“In the epigraph for her poem ‘Music,’ modern mystic Diane Moore cites a line from Rumi. ‘Music’ is a lyric poem celebrating love in the sound of a wren’s singing, the sun’s laughter, and a loved one’s voice. Narrative poems convey Moore’s gift for agape: an Amish woman selling corn and flowers recognizes the poet as ‘a good little lady,’ a child necklace dealer in Mexico, ‘Christ’s vendor,’ displays ‘Jesus on a black string’ with a peephole revealing Christo Rey 'who takes away…all the sins in the world,’ as well as ‘my pesos at the rate of 20 a day’… In ‘A field of Battered Weed,’ Moore reveals the reality of long-lasting love through a thistle, ‘an ancient symbol of both pain and pleasure.’ 

-Kathleen Hamman, editor, Plateau Books, Sewanee, Tennessee.-

Diane Marquart Moore is a retired archdeacon of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Louisiana, poet, writer, and journalist who lives part of the year in New Iberia, Louisiana, and part of the year in Sewanee, Tennessee. She publishes “A Words Worth” blog at revmoore.blogspot monthly.

The beautiful cover photograph is Karen Bourque’s glass adaptation of a lotus appearing in Why Water Plants Don’t Drown as illustrated by Susan Entsminger and authored by Victoria I. Sullivan. Cover design of All Love, by Martin Romero.

All Love, as well as 49 other titles by Moore, are available through Border Press Books, P.O. Box 3124, Sewanee, TN and amazon.com.

SPRING’S KISS

In 2014, Border Press published Between Plants and People, a book of my poetry about plant life accompanied by eighteen color photographs by Dr. Victoria I. Sullivan, a noteworthy botanist. It contained metaphors describing the impact of plants on humans — food plants, medicinal plants, and decorative plants, and is an innovative account of “humanistic botany” in poetry.

The second volume of plant poems I wrote this summer, with accompanying photographs by Dr. Sullivan, is now in press. Spring’s Kiss, a book of poetry praising the qualities of wildflowers that inhabit and create beauty in the plant kingdoms of the world, is a nod to Susan Albert’s: “One person’s weed is another person’s wildflower,” and many of those weeds are included in this volume. Medicinal, as well as aesthetic qualities of the plants, are touted in some of the poems, and the beautiful blooms of these weeds reinforce Albert’s observation about plants.

The cover of this volume is a photograph of Karen Bourque’s glass rendition of the Pickerel Weed as inspired by Susan Elizabeth Entsminger’s illustration of the aquatic weed in Why Water Plants Don’t Drown by Victoria I. Sullivan, and the photograph was used in the cover design by Martin Romero, a landscape architect who renders the final designs for my book covers.

Spring’s Kiss can be pre-ordered from Border Press, P.O. Box 3124, Sewanee, TN 37375 for $20 including shipping and will also be available from Amazon by Aug. 15.

A VISIT TO WINTERBERRY PLACE

The mission of the Convent of St. Mary here at Sewanee includes providing a Sister or minister to a small congregation of Grace Fellowship Church on certain Sundays, and the visiting member of the Religious coordinates "Reflection" time about the Gospel assigned for that Sunday. On the Sundays that I preach at St. Mary's, I also go down the road and deliver the same sermon to Grace Fellowship, and I've grown fond of the people who gather in the little church at the edge of a pond on Garnertown Road.

Yesterday, at the invitation of Carolyn and Charles ("Chuck") Tocco, a couple in this Fellowship congregation, I went out to Winterberry Place in Deep Woods to see Carolyn's studio paintings. I had seen many of her depictions of Jesus that hang in the sanctuary at Grace Fellowship and had asked about exhibits she schedules twice a year at times when I won't be on The Mountain, so she offered a private showing of her art.

I thought I'd hiked in and seen all of the deep woods around Sewanee, but Winterberry Place is situated in a wood Robert Frost would have called "lovely, dark and deepest." We drove down the Fire Tower Road just past St. Andrews School, then traveled about three miles on a paved road and on to a gravel path that ran through dense woods leading to Wormwood Lane, a lane ending at the gate of Winterberry Place.

Everywhere we looked, we saw flowers and gardens, and the Toccos stood on the porch to welcome us, attempting to shush the barking of several dogs (mixed breeds, Carolyn explained) that had been penned up so we could visit without interference. Just inside the front door, we glimpsed several of Carolyn's large oil paintings, one of a snow scene in the woods and another depiction of Jesus on a hill overlooking an ancient city.

We walked through the house and onto the back porch to get a view of the bluff that overlooks the town of Pelham, Tennessee and toured the tea house at the end of the porch. I had brought Carolyn a copy of my book, Porch Posts, and it proved to be a perfect gift because the Tocco's porch would make a good photograph for any home and garden magazine and appears to be a favored room of the home. My friend Vickie, who accompanied me, had brought her book Why Water Plants Don't Drown as a gift, and it was also a "hit" for the Toccos, two seasoned gardeners.

Carolyn, a native of Sewanee (actually Garnertown) has been painting since childhood and spent four years studying art with a private instructor in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She has done most of her excellent work in oils, although she has tried acrylics and watercolors, choosing oil as her favorite because "it's the most forgiving medium," she says.

Before we went upstairs to see Carolyn's studio, we sat and exchanged stories about our backgrounds. Both Carolyn and Chuck had been in the Air Force and met at an airbase in New Jersey, and both say that when other retirees tell them that they retire to travel, they're amazed because they've already had their peripatetic experience, traveling with the Air Force to stations in Alaska, Okinawa, Thailand, Guam, the Philippines, Hawaii, and other posts.

When the Toccos decided to join the retiree population, they were living in Sweetwater, Tennessee where Chuck worked as a Systems Engineer at Watts Bar Nuclear Plant (TVA) following his stint in the Air Force. Both sang in a Methodist Church choir in Sweetwater, and nowadays Chuck sings solo and a capella for the Grace Fellowship congregation.

Although Carolyn's former work had included a sophisticated assignment as an Air Force Communications Specialist executing flight plans and decoding cryptographic messages in a "vault," her background as a hardy Tennessean served her and Chuck well when they bought the ten acres of woodland in Deep Woods. She joined Chuck in clearing the land much as women of Tennessee stock must have done during pioneer days. "Chuck used one chain saw, and I used another until we had cleared the entire space for our home on the bluff," she says.

We climbed stairs to Carolyn's studio and entered a room with long windows that let in the generous shafts of light that artists need for painting. Bookcases on two walls contained Carolyn's eclectic reading, including books of poetry, religious writing, and classics. We were also intrigued by a small insect display that Carolyn had been collecting for her "bug paintings." Renderings of owls, dandelions, cotton plants, milkweed pods, horses plowing in a field, sheep, and other outdoor scenes leaned against the wall beneath the long windows, and a painting of a road resembling the entrance lane to Winterberry Place stood on Carolyn's easel. Carolyn paints in the afternoons and says the subjects for her paintings are inspired; she disciplines herself to carry out the work as "it is a gift from God."

 

We lingered longer than we had planned and were invited to return another time when Carolyn
promises she'll have two of her small paintings ready for us—a "bug painting" and a "berry painting"—mementos of this wonderful artist's haven in the deep woods on The Mountain at Sewanee that we'll take back to bayou country in October.

Photographs by Victoria I. Sullivan

WATER PLANTS

Nymphoides invader

I've written a gracious plenty about hikes and plant hunts lately, and many of these explorations with Vickie Sullivan have been missions to find water plants in the lakes around Sewanee, Tennessee. Dr. Sullivan was recently asked to be the kick-off speaker/lecturer for the Ora et Labora Program Series sponsored by St. Mary's Convent here at Sewanee, and our treks through chigger-ridden areas and searches for elusive lakes have been focused on finding plants that live in wet-habitats.

In the past, Dr. Sullivan has been more at home in the wet habitats of Louisiana and Florida, so my depictions of failed searches and scant findings on The Mountain were not hyperbolic sketches. However, yesterday at Lake Cheston, she discovered enough specimens to illustrate the talk she'll give on September 26, and after bathing these specimens under the garden hose, she placed them in a small aquarium on the front porch, leaving them with the admonition, "Y'all stay alive now." I think they're safe from the wildlife in the surrounding woods, but one always takes a deep breath when putting a plant in the garden or leaving any kind of vegetation in vessels outdoors around here.

I'm posting the flier about Dr. Sullivan's workshop that's being circulated in Sewanee and its environs. It's an invitation to those who live further afield in case they want to sally over from marsh country or other environments to hear what she has to say. She won't be mentioning any of our failed explorations, and she was fortunately immune to the chiggers that attacked me on one of our hikes to find aquatic plants, so she should present her subject without unsightly scratching and twitching on the 26th.

Here's the flier Sister Madeline Mary designed to advertise Why Water Plants Don't Drown, title of the program and of the book written by Dr. Sullivan and illustrated by Susan Elliott, another botanist and artist from Montrose, Colorado:

MORE OF KAREN BOURQUE'S ARTISTRY

On Wednesday, we not only brought home good memories of hanging out in Arnaudville, Louisiana, with Darrell and Karen Bourque, we acquired another glass art piece by Karen, whose work hangs in our Sewanee, Tennessee and New Iberia, Louisiana homes. The latest acquisition is a rendition of the Pickerel Weed, an aquatic plant with brilliant blue flowers, densely clustered on a long spike with heart-shaped leaves, that attracts bees and butterflies.

Karen was inspired to create the stained glass piece using blue dog-toothed amethyst after reading Why Water Plants Don't Drown by Victoria Sullivan and discovering the lovely illustration for the Pickerel Weed rendered by Susan Elliott, artist and co-editor of Pinyon Publishing.

In the text accompanying the glass work, Karen explains that no blue stone felt right for the flowers, so she chose the dog-toothed amethyst to represent them. She attributes qualities of spirituality and contentment to the amethyst and relates that it has calming, protective powers of healing, divine love, and inspiration and that it enhances psychic and creative abilities. We have hung this art that represents "the peace of the perfect peace which was present prior to birth" in the sunroom and can look out and see it each morning at breakfast time.

I always enjoy the texts that accompany Karen's work as they are small inspirational pieces she chooses to use in her interpretations of objects in nature and the personalities who commission the work, as well as to foster creativity in those who acquire the glass work. She is married to the poet Darrell Bourque, and they're well suited to each other because she matches his gift for writing poetry with her visual poems in glass.

Karen has done glass pieces for many homes throughout Acadiana, for the Louisiana Book Festival, for the Ernest Gaines Center at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and other art centers. Much of her work focuses on the natural world and spirituality—on those images that give meaning and harmony to human experience.

We now have five of Karen's glass pieces, three of which are at Sewanee. One of the more recent pieces is a rendition of a porch that was photographed and appeared on the cover of Porch Posts, a collection of essays and stories that I co-authored with Janet Faulk this year. I will be autographing this book at A&E Gallery in New Iberia Saturday, Dec. 13, 1 - 3 p.m., along with Vickie Sullivan who is debuting her sequel to the speculative novel Adoption entitled Rogue Genes.

Porch Posts' cover is Karen's interpretation of a painting done by the late Elmore Morgan, Jr. which shows the bare outlines of a porch open to the air that might have been a place to sit and watch the sunset and fireflies winking on a summer night.

Karen handles commissions for glass work created in her studio in Church Point, Louisiana, and if you're interested in her work, she can be reached at 337-684-3542 or 337-351-2219.

Photograph of the Pickerel Weed by Victoria I. Sullivan, author of Why Water Plants Don't Drown, Adoption, and Rogue Genes.

  

"HANGING OUT" IN ARNAUDVILLE

The Poets

Yesterday morning, we took a ride over the "prairie" in St. Landry parish to have lunch in Arnaudville with our good friends, Darrell
and Karen Bourque. It was a chilly December day but the sun was out and as we drove into the small town of 1400 residents, we felt excited to be meeting with our old friends and visiting a town that has become a buzzing haven for writers, artists, musicians, and chefs. Arnaudville has gained recognition as the hub of the French cultural renaissance; in fact, the town received the award of "Cultural Economy Hero of the Year" from the Louisiana Cultural Economy Foundation in 2013.

We were also excited to be picking up a piece of glass art created by Karen, who had done a wonderful rendering of the pickerel weed, inspired by drawings she had seen of Susan Elliott's art in Vickie Sullivan's book, Why Water Plants Don't Drown, a naturalist's guide to aquatic plants. And, of course, Darrell and I had a chance to "talk poetry." He's a former Poet Laureate of Louisiana and winner of the "Louisiana Writer of the Year Award" presented at the Louisiana Book Festival this year.

The Artist

Both Darrell and Karen, native south Louisianans, contribute much to the Arts and also support writers, artists, and musicians throughout the State. Darrell has become fascinated with, and actively involved in, memorializing Amédé Ardoin, the legendary Cajun accordionist. The Amédé Ardoin Project is raising money to build a public statue in honor of the musician, and an estimated $30,000 to $60,000 is needed for a bronze statue.

Darrell has already memorialized Ardoin with his last book of 14 poems entitled If You Abandon Me, and he's busy working on another book that will include the Amédé poems and poems about other famous Cajun musicians of Louisiana.

We enjoyed lunch at the Little Big Cup restaurant on the banks of Bayou Fusilier, and Darrell took us on a tour of several cottages recently moved into Arnaudville that will be available for artists, writers, and musicians who apply for a few months' stay in the village so they can work on their various projects. He was inspired to take us on the tour because I had said how great it would be to have writing space in a tiny house in an out-of-the-way place like Arnaudville. The cottages near the center of town are situated on the banks of Bayou Fusilier, a bayou that forms a junction with Bayou Teche. Darrell said that artists from around the world visit the area, and some of them take up residence after tasting our Louisiana bayou waters.

We missed the Fire and Water Rural Arts Celebration that took place at NUNU's, but Darrell took us to this Arts and Culture Collective, site of the recent celebration, to meet George Marks, owner of the old warehouse that houses the artwork, books, and products of regional artists. NUNU's will also be the repository for funds raised for the Amédé Ardoin statue.

Amédé Ardoin's story is a sad song in itself. The famed musician who sang of loneliness and heartbreak, performed at a dance one summer night, and a white woman brought him her handkerchief to wipe his brow during the performance. Following the dance he was run over by prejudiced assailants and injured so badly he could no longer take care of himself. He was committed to the State hospital in Pineville, Louisiana where he died in 1942.

Darrell tells this tragic story in the 14 poems mentioned earlier and was inspired to carry out the project to create a statue in the musician's honor. Any home in south Louisiana (or anywhere else, for that matter) that hosts a party and raises as much as $300 toward the Ardoin project will receive a yard sign that says: "Amédé Ardoin stopped here on his way home."

Naan Oven

Birdhouse
Tower

When we took a walk in the yard around NUNU's with George Marks, I spied a unique clay oven that brought back memories of the ovens that baked our weekly naan when we lived in Iran. The oven was another creation of local artists and was fired up continuously during the Le Feu et L'eau (Fire and Water) Rural Arts Celebration last week. Vickie Sullivan snapped photos of the oven and a yard "totem" topped by a birdhouse made of tile that are displayed on this blog.

(Note: Before we left NUNU's, Darrell told us that George Marks will have a "tiny house" on wheels next door to NUNU's available by the Spring of 2015...hmmmm).

We always come away from a visit with the Bourques inspired to write and to support the Arts and are already planning an early January get-together with this talented couple to celebrate the New Year in bayou country.

GEORGIA ON MY MIND AGAIN

Back in the 1950's, when I worked for Agricultural Extension Service, I took a course in Agricultural Journalism that introduced me to feature writing and the idea of cultivating serendipity.  For those of you who don't know the story behind that word, "serendipity" is based on the adventures of the three Princes of Serendip. During their travels, they developed a facility for discovering, by chance, or by sagacity, valuable things and ideas for which they weren't really searching. Although they may have been searching for something else, when they stumbled across something worthwhile, they always recognized it. Serendipity often happens to me when I'm wandering around in adjoining states, looking for one thing and finding another.

Last week, we traveled to Roswell, Georgia looking for the elusive pitcher plant for a book of poetry about plants that I'm writing and for which my friend, Victoria Sullivan, is taking photographs of plants. We had read that the pitcher plant was alive and doing well in the Chattahoochee Nature Center in Roswell, so we set out for this town north of Atlanta to find a plant that grows in wetland areas and that we more often find thriving along the Gulf coast.

The Chattahoochee Nature Center began its activities in the 1970's, and during the past five years, the Center has partnered with other organizations in the rescue, propagation, and re-introduction of threatened and endangered native plants. The 127 acres of native plants and gardens also include 50 species of injured, non-releasable wildlife.

We arrived at the Center an hour before it opened and sat on dew-damp benches beside the entrance, enjoying the sight of skippers having breakfast in the Joe Pye Weed nearby and hoping the summer humidity of Georgia wouldn't spoil our walk along the Wetland Trail to find the Pitcher Plant. The garden on this trail represents five types of wetlands in Georgia that stretch from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean.

At 10 sharp, we joined a groundswell of children entering the headquarters of the Center, and ten minutes later, we had begun to wander the Wetlands Trail. We hadn't walked far before we spotted the plant that also grows in boggy areas of the Gulf Coast states. Although the Pitcher Plant seemed to be asleep in a sun that was climbing higher by the moment, Vickie took some wonderful shots of the colorful, funnel-shaped leaves with the reddish veins that attract and trap visiting insects. I told my botanist friend that the pitchers resembled peppermint candy, and she informed me that the plants probably looked that way to insects and that the nectar was the attraction. These leaves become the insects' downfall as they slip and fall into the liquid within that is laced with digestive enzymes. Downward pointing hairs prevent the insects from escaping up the slippery walls inside the attractive pitcher.

We walked several other trails that included the Watershed Trail where animals make their homes and the Forest Trail through upland oak-hickory woods before we returned to the air-conditioned Nature Center to purchase a souvenir shirt and another book to add to a burgeoning plants library.  

Lunchtime brought us to the point of serendipity. In a small mall, we located a cafe within Roswell Farmers Market that we had discovered on YELP. Inside, we approached a woman with a kerchief around her hair and announced to her that we were ravenously hungry. It was only 11:30 a.m., but we had worked up an appetite during the walk on the Center's trails. She looked surprised but promised us lunch within fifteen minutes. Thirty minutes later, Vickie was devouring a special shrimp dish and a salad. Because I'm allergic to shellfish, the owner and chef, Shannon Gowland, had (spontaneously) created a dish for me that contained ground grass-fed beef, tiny cubed sweet potatoes, purple top turnip roots, and Tioga beets, accompanied by mashed gold potatoes mixed with raw milk cheddar. The salad contained mixed greens, shredded zucchini, celery, and pumpkin seed, topped with a soy vinegar dressing that was the chef's specialty and which she offered to bottle for us.

The authentic Serendip was the chef—Shannon—who owns the Farmers Market grocery (no GMO foods) and Cafe, a herbal clinic, and deals in Weight Loss and Meal Consultations. Born and raised on what she called a "biodynamic farm" near Marietta, Georgia, Shannon often helped her grandfather gather plants to make medicinals and grew up with a healthy respect for food. She worked as a dietician for pre-op and post-op patients in a Georgia hospital before establishing a herbal business, then opened the Roswell Farmers Market last year. She touts 100% grass-fed beef, organic, biodynamic, vegan, and gluten free food, and she knows how to concoct delicious dishes that have all these ingredients without offending diners by serving food that sounds like it may be medicine.

We spent two hours with Shannon and her staff, and with a son and a daughter she plans to home school next year. Conversation centered on plants, and when we stopped talking and opened the door to leave, Vickie casually mentioned her book Why Water Plants Don't Drown. I encouraged her to bring in the copy she had put in her briefcase to show at the Nature Center, and Shannon bought it on the spot. We left her turning the pages with the enthusiasm of a genuine plant lover. She also offered to sponsor a meal/reading for us any time we had business in Georgia, saying that she could whip up an event with an enthusiastic audience on short notice. We added that ability to a list of her obvious talents.

As I wrote when I began this blog, it's important to cultivate serendipity... especially when you travel in Georgia, which is fast becoming one of my favorite states!

Photographs by Victoria I. Sullivan

BOOKS AT A BAZAAR

Bookstores and readings are common venues for book sales, but Friday I enjoyed a different kind of marketing event. I sold books at a bazaar hosted by the Monteagle Sunday School Assembly Women's Association in Monteagle, Tennessee, just down the road from Sewanee. It was a "dark and rainy" morning when the sale opened at 9 a.m, The event was slated to close at 4 p.m., but my personal fortitude waned after standing by a table hawking books, from set-up time at 7 a.m. until 3:30 p.m., when I threw in the towel and helped pack boxes of books. Rain pelted us as we exited the bazaar and headed for dry quarters.

The bazaar featured everything from arts and crafts to clothing and baked goods. When we first entered the auditorium, I was intimidated by the long tables of goods since Border Press had only a small card table and copies of five book titles arranged on it, with photographs of the book covers of Porch Posts and Why Water Plants Don't Drown (Pinyon Publishing) in the foreground of the display. I was further intimidated by a craftswoman next to our table who had a large, dazzling display of silver jewelry created from old forks, spoons, and other silver items that took her at least an hour to set up on a table twice the size of ours.

"Are there many book sellers at these bazaars?" I asked the craftswoman.

She looked at me, gave our table a cursory glance, and said, "There's at least one of those at every crafts show I go to." She returned to arranging her table.

"Do they sell many?" I persisted.

"A few," she said dismissively. She was a native Tennessean from Tracy City, so I was accustomed to such brief conversations, but the dismissal didn't inspire confidence.

"Been to many of these crafts shows?"

My interruptions seemed to be a bit much for her, but she threw a long reply over her shoulder, "I go to three or four of these every week. I fill my van with the jewelry, take it to the show and unload it, find a campground, take out the seat in the back of the van, unroll a sleeping bag, and I'm good for the night." She beamed a smile, pleased with her resourcefulness.

The last piece of information silenced me. I thought to myself, this gal ain't camping out in a van to sell a few books... and I sent out for food fortifications.

I met visitors to the bazaar from Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia, and the first half of the day passed quickly because we received and talked with a lot of lookers. I spent several hours touting the virtues of porches and plants, but most people were more interested in the conversation than the books. After lunch, time lagged, and although my neighbor, the jewelry maker, stayed until the bitter end, we left at 3:30 p.m., having sold a dozen books and a few packets of cards. The cards featured the beautiful plant paintings of Susan Elliott who had illustrated Why Water Plants Don't Drown by Victoria Sullivan, owner of Border Press, and the arresting pictures attracted many lookers.

Although the sale seemed to last as long as a church meeting "singing all day and eating on the ground," it was a colorful event that benefits the work of the Monteagle Sunday School Assembly Women's Association, which has sponsored the bazaar and Tour of Homes for 51 years. Following lunch, Ralph Null, renowned floral designer, demonstrated his secrets for easy floral arrangements and auctioned these arrangements at the end of the program. Proceeds benefitted the Monteagle Women's Association.

The Monteagle Sunday School Assembly has a history dating back to 1882 when the Sunday School Convention of Tennessee established an educational congress for Sunday School teachers. Sunday School teachers from many southern states attended summer classes at the Assembly in Monteagle to enrich their Sunday School teaching.

The Monteagle Assembly had close ties with the first Assembly in Lake Chautauqua, New York, which was created to combine Sunday School teaching with "the promotion of the broadest popular culture in the interest of Christianity without regard to sect or denomination," and the organization attains its mission through a variety of spiritual, health, cultural, and educational activities. The Monteagle Assembly eventually became the headquarters for the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.

"The Assembly," as Sewaneeans refer to the attractive property, also contains over 160 homes, and the homeowners are fifth-and sixth-generation Assembly families. Two of the homes on tour Friday were the "Hallelujah Cottage" built in 1905, which has always been owned by women, and "Mojo," formerly known as "The Little House," built in 1885, that also has a special arrangement for dogs to come in through the screen porch door and leave through the kitchen door. Many of the homes have porches that reflect Queen Anne and Gothic architectural influences, which interested me because I've just published a book about porches and porch sitters. The homes are sought after as rentals during the summer months when special activities for adults and children are offered—youth programs dominate the Assembly's schedules.

The Assembly has an active rental program, public meeting rooms, a dining hall, tennis courts, an amphitheater, and other buildings and programs designed to accommodate thousands of visitors every summer. Sunday services and evening prayer (called Twilight Prayer) take place every week, and outstanding guest ministers and lecturers are featured in programs offered to the public.  

We actually developed good rapport with the silver jewelry craftswoman who was our neighbor at the bazaar and shared part of our lunch with her. She told us that she makes a better living creating and selling jewelry than she did managing a convenience store and gets more satisfaction from a creative occupation. In her spare time, she paints. She's representative of the numerous, talented craftspeople and artists born and bred in the Cumberland country, and I admire her ingenuity. But I'm still not going on the road and sleep in a van in order to market my "creations." Perhaps I would've been game for this sleeping arrangement at age 40, but that number is getting ready to double!

THE LOTUS

Shortly before I invited guests to dinner two weeks ago, we received another original glass piece from Karen Bourque to hang in the dining room window, a beautiful picture of the lotus flower composed of pink pearly shells, amber, and green glass. Karen, who lives in Churchpoint, Louisiana, has created glass pieces for numerous homes throughout Acadiana and large, commissioned pieces for the Louisiana Book Festival and the Ernest J. Gaines Center at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

Karen explains that in this latest picture she tried to capture the lotus as a universal symbol, the primary theme being one of rebirth and purity. She drew the symbolism from Buddhist and Hindu traditions --the symbol of the fully-opened pink lotus, which is considered to be the true lotus of the Buddha.

In the legend that accompanies Karen’s work of art, she says that the pink pearly shells used for the petals of the plant strengthen intuition, sensitivity, and imagination, adding that they also attract prosperity and wealth. The amber which she used for the flower’s stamen is believed to be a healing stone and brings blessings. It also helps dreams to become reality and calms those who suffer from hyperactivity and stress. An added bonus: the amber transmutes humor and joy, two qualities that should be a part of any household, especially at the dinner table!

We love the three glass pieces that hang in the dining room, especially when the morning light streams through the windows and illuminates the various glass colors and stones imbedded in the pieces of art. The green colors in this latest work of art are particularly brilliant all day.

The Lotus was a gift to my friend, Victoria Sullivan, who is a botanist and who has spent endless hours programming and designing my books of poetry for her independent press, Border Press. She writes about the lotus plant in Why Water Plants Don’t Drown, a book about water plants for which Susan Elliott of Pinyon Publishing rendered the lovely illustrations, which was published by Pinyon last year.

In this biological and ecological text, Vickie relates that the pale pink flowers of sacred lotus are the largest and most spectacular of any water plants. A “floater,” as Vickie calls floating leaf plants, the lotus is native to India and is widely cultivated. She writes: “Buried seeds of the sacred lotus found in Manchuria were able to germinate after 200 years, and seeds may survive hundreds or even a thousand years.” Karen loved Susan’s colorful interpretations of the plants in Why Water Plants Don’t Drown and was inspired to render several botanical glass representations after reading this book about aquatic and wetland plants.

Karen says that in the Christian religion, the waterlily, a variant of the lotus, was presented to Mary by the Archangel Gabriel at the Annunciation. It also represents enlightenment and is associated with the consciousness of those people who have reached Nirvana. Most of her glass pieces contain stones, gems, and colored glass that represent spiritual values—creation and regeneration are recurring themes. She encases the written explanations for the art work in a transparent sleeve that accompanies each piece she completes.

In the fall when we return to New Iberia, we hope to make our annual pilgrimage to Churchpoint to view Karen’s latest work and to visit with her and her husband, Darrell Bourque, former poet laureate of Louisiana. Darrell’s latest book, Megan’s Guitar and Other Poems from Acadie is currently making a big splash in Teche country. Salut to all of these talented artists and writers!

WATER HYACINTH – PLAGUE OR CLEAN-UP DETAIL?

Water Hyacinth
(Eichhornia crassipes)

Yesterday, I heard from many readers who enjoyed the essay on the Japanese magnolia tree, a tree that brightens the late winter landscape and heralds the beginning of spring in south Louisiana. Today, I thought I’d do a counterpoint feature on one of the Deep South’s not-so-well-received plants – the noxious water hyacinth.

Boaters and fishermen in south Louisiana often encounter and utter a few expletives about the exotic water hyacinth, so aptly described in Dr. Victoria I. Sullivan’s new nature guide, Why Water Plants Don’t Drown. This book covers the survival strategies of aquatic and wetland plants and includes a beautiful illustration of the prolific water hyacinth, the bane of Louisiana boaters.

According to Sullivan, the water hyacinth was introduced at the International Cotton Exposition in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1884 when visiting members of the Japanese government distributed souvenir water hyacinth plants from Venezuela. Those who received the beautiful flowering plants with their purple-petaled blooms and yellow bull’s eye nectar guides regarded them as treasures and transferred the plants to garden and farm ponds near New Orleans. Of course, they quickly multiplied, and people began to dispose of them in the nearest lakes and rivers to get rid of them.

Water hyacinth clogging
a waterway

It seems that water hyacinth can form mats that double in size within a few days, and the leaf blades of the plant catch the wind like sails, moving them over the water. The rafts of plants can become entangled in boat propellers and stall the boats of fishermen. State and federal governments in southeastern states budget billions of dollars annually to deter the spread of water hyacinth. The rafts of the plant are large and thick, and deprive photosynthetic organisms under them of light, thus reducing their oxygen production. But water hyacinth release oxygen into the water through their roots.

Boaters and fishermen may regard the water hyacinth as a nuisance, but this exotic plant does benefit other plants and animals. Seeds of the water-spider orchid and water primrose germinate and grow on the large, thick mats of water hyacinth, and the feathery roots of the plant form habitats for small animals. In addition to these benefits, water hyacinth help clean water that has become polluted by household waste and fertilizer run-off.

This feature about the water hyacinth is included in a section entitled “Floaters” in Why Water Plants Don’t Drown, which features plants that float on the surface of the water and have roots that hang freely in the water.

The two arresting illustrations in this blog were rendered by Susan Elliott, an artist, ecologist, and writer who lives in Montrose, Colorado – Elliott illustrated Why Water Plants Don’t Drown and note cards featuring some of the plants contained in this nature guide.

Copies of Why Water Plants Don’t Drown and packages of cards featuring some of the plants can be ordered from Pinyon Publishing either online or by mail at 23847 V66 Trail, Montrose, CO 81403.

WINTER PURSUITS

It’s 70 degrees this afternoon in south Louisiana, and I just shed a leather jacket that I had been prompted to wear because the early morning temps were in the 50’s. What a wimp some of my friends in the mountains think I am! As I write this, winter storms are brewing in the West and Midwest, and this morning’s email from Gary Entsminger, publisher of Pinyon Publishing in Montrose, Colorado, carried a wintry message. “At last,” Gary writes, “we awoke to a winter storm. Five inches of snow have fallen so far, and it is snowing steadily. The atmosphere is calm…nice. Susan (Susan Elliott, Gary’s partner and artist at Pinyon) and Garcia (a beautiful black Lab) shoveled our first paths and stocked the feeders, so we have about 100 little birds dancing and pecking in the snow and on the pinyon branches. The mountains have been getting good snow for a few days, but our storms had been just dusting until this morning. Hooray! It’s a classic winter wonderland outside…”

Gary and Susan have many indoor pursuits that keep them busy while the snow falls and have been working steadily on publishing books, selling second-hand editions, practicing guitar mandolin, and piano music, singing and dancing, cooking and canning. Their latest indoor pursuit is a beautiful project that they finished just in time for Christmas. Susan created Art Cards from two of Pinyon’s book publication list, Open the Gates: Poems for Young Readers by Dabney Stuart, which contains 43 illustrations drawn and painted by Susan; and Why Water Plants Don’t Drown: Survival Strategies of Aquatic and Wetland Plants by Victoria Sullivan, which contains 62 illustrations rendered by Susan.

Almost all of the artwork in Open the Gates is of animals because the creatures are what the poems are about. Susan chose eight animals that displayed the different vibrant watercolor styles she used in the book: bat, rhino, fiddler crab, newt, bumble bee (one of her favorites because it’s a Bombus appositus bumble bee on a Delphinium barbeyi larkspur, subjects in Susan’s dissertation study – she has a Ph.D. in Botany), impala, water ouzel, and wolf.

We ordered several of the packets of the Art Cards featuring Susan’s illustrations in Why Water Plants Don’t Drown and plan to order more. Although Why Water Plants Don’t Drown includes technical illustrations to accompany the section in which Vickie describes the primary needs of plants: light, gases, structural support, and reproduction, no Art Cards were created from this section. Other sections include aquatic plants (sub-categories of Divers, Floaters, and Floating-Leaf Plants in Why Water Plants Don’t Drown) and wetland plants (sub-category “Waders”). For the Water Plants cards, Susan chose four aquatic examples (lotus, sea grasses, spatterdock, and water hyacinth) and four Wetland examples (water tupelo, cranberry, venus fly trap and swamp milkweed).

We’ve given several packets of the Art Cards as Christmas gifts that our friends opened immediately, and the response to Susan’s artwork has been tremendous. For those readers who haven’t purchased either of these books, you’re in for a treat. Susan says she chose images that were striking and elegant on their own (without accompanying text or poems), and the images bear out her descriptions of both animals and plants.

Use the Art Cards link to contact the publisher online or at mailing address: Pinyon Publishing, 23847 V66 Trail, Montrose, CO 81403.

WHY WATER PLANTS DON’T DROWN

My good friend, Victoria Sullivan, has written a book, Why Water Plants Don’t Drown, about aquatic and wetland plants, beautifully illustrated by Susan Elliott, artist, ecologist, and writer with Pinyon Publishing, a quality press located in the U.S. Rockies in Montrose, Colorado. Pinyon published the book on October 15, and we arrived in New Iberia Friday to find boxes of it safely stored with our friend, Janet Faulk-Gonzales.

Vickie, a writer and botanist, has a Ph.D. in biology from Florida State University and is a former professor with the University of Louisiana in Lafayette. She has published numerous botanical papers, fiction, and non-fiction, including the speculative novel, Adoption, also published by Pinyon. Vickie was recently honored by a new flower species Eupatorium sullivaniae being named after her, crediting her extensive scientific research on the Eupatorium genus.

Susan Elizabeth Elliott studied botany and French at Humboldt State University and has a Ph.D. in biology from Dartmouth College. She has published fiction and nonfiction, and her paintings are showcased in Open the Gates: Poems for Young Readers by Dabney Stuart, as well as in Why Water Plants Don’t Drown. Her drawings and paintings in Why Water Plants Don’t Drown greatly enhance and clarify the scientific text.

The following is an interview with Vickie in which she talked about this basic biological and ecological text:

Moore: I know that you wrote one version of Why Water Plants Don’t Drown in the 90’s and didn’t write this later version until last year. What prompted you to “begin again?”

Sullivan: I wrote a children's version of Why Water Plants Don’t Drown, which was bought by Franklin Watts, a division of Grolier that was then bought by Scholastic. My manuscript got sidelined in the buy out, and my editor there didn’t continue with Scholastic. I asked to be released from the contract with Scholastic and began looking for a new publisher. Pinyon Publishing became interested, but wanted the book pitched to nature enthusiasts of any age and to contain more science. I rewrote the manuscript, keeping the title and general categories of water plants. Gary Entsminger, the publisher, and Susan Elliott, the illustrator and botanist, provided excellent comments and suggestions for additions (and subtractions) from my draft manuscript.

Moore: What do you mean by Survival Strategies of Aquatic and Wetland Plants?

Sullivan: Plants that normally live on dry land cannot live in water or wet places for very long. Aquatic and wetland plants can only do so because they have adaptations that allow them to thrive in such habitats. Regardless of where they live, all plants have basic needs that must be met. They must have adequate light and concentrations of needed gases, the body must be supported, and they must be able to reproduce.

Moore: Why is light a problem for water plants?

Sullivan: Plants make food using sunlight or artificial light in the case of aquaria, but when light passes through water some wavelengths they need are filtered out. Plants living submerged in water must compensate by being more efficient in absorbing the light waves that they need.

Light and need for gases are linked in water plants. All plants need two gases, carbon dioxide and oxygen, and these are not as concentrated in water as they are in the air above the water. Water plants trap gases in air spaces in their bodies for later use. The same plant tissue that traps gases also allows them to float in water, in other words, to be supported by the water. If you examine a water hyacinth plant, a common floating plant in parts of the US, especially the southeast, you'll see that much of the plant is made of air spaces. Being supported by water is important because if water plants sink too deeply below the surface, they’ll be below the level of adequate light penetration for photosynthesis.

Being stiffly supported by hard stems and tough leaves, as in land plants, is a disadvantage in water. Water currents flowing across such stiff plants would tear them apart. Water plants that grow submerged tend to be soft and flimsy providing little resistance to the currents.

Moore: How do plants reproduce in water? On land, plants have flowers that make seeds. Do water plants have underwater flowers?

Sullivan: Reproduction by seeds varies in water plants and may occur after pollination underwater in some species or above water in flowers that attract pollinators. Underwater flowers are very nondescript and even hard to recognize as flowers. A common feature of water plants is to reproduce by cloning without seeds that is by breaking apart with parts growing into new plants. Hydrilla, the invasive scourge, and other water plants are able to spread as carry pieces of plants are carried from place to place on boats, wading birds, etc. In addition, hydrilla and others like it produce underground buds in great abundance that lie dormant for periods of time.

Flooded soils are low or lacking in oxygen, which is a problem that rooted aquatic and wetlands plants must overcome. Roots need oxygen and land soils have oxygen in air pockets among the soil particles. The aquatic and wetland plants I call snorkelers, pump oxygen to the roots in various ways from the surface. Water lilies, for example, take in gases through stomates in their floating leaves. As the sun heats the leaves, the gases expand and get pushed down through column in the leaf stalks, all the way to roots. Excess gases are pushed out into the underwater soils providing oxygen to other organisms. Methane, or marsh gases, and carbon dioxide from the roots move up the columns within these plants and are leaked into the atmosphere through stomates of older leaves.

Moore: in talking with Lorraine Kingston, owner of the New Iberia Books along the Teche bookstore, she suggested that the book should attract Louisianans because of the interest in environmental concerns – salt water intrusion and the demise of vegetation along the coast. Do you think your book will provide insights into Louisiana environmental problems? What about wetland plant loss?

Sullivan: Lack of sedimentation is a major problem for wetland habitats, and finding a means of replenishing flow of sediments is needed and being worked on. Over 40% of wetland habitats in the U.S. occur in Louisiana, and between 1932 and 2010, Louisiana lost 25% of its wetlands. Levees channelized natural waterways preventing overflow, robbing wetlands along the watercourse and coastal marshlands downstream of a flow of nourishing sedimentation. Without a sediments supply, marshlands erode and plants die leaving behind open water.

Intensive oil and gas industry development in Louisiana has damaged coastal wetlands. Spoil from canals dug to access well sites is piled along canal banks, smothering plants and impeding the flow of water and sediments. Also, the extraction of oil and gas from underground causes the marshes to sink and be replaced by open water.

Assessment of the impact of the British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon oil spill is in its early stages. Marsh plants growing 15-30 feet from the shoreline were killed, and as this happened, roots could no longer hold sediments, and erosion from wave action along the marsh edges more than doubled.

Moore: How does sea level rise affect coastal wetlands?

Sullivan: Sea level rise affects coastal wetlands worldwide. Over time, elevations of marshes rise naturally through sedimentation and vegetation decay. However, if sea levels rise too rapidly, natural sedimentation can be outpaced, and coastal wetlands retreat inland, if possible or disappear. The EPA has predicted that during the next century, sea levels will rise 6 to 13 inches, which would inundate coastal wetlands. Over time sea levels rise during interglacial period, like this one, but the current pace of rise is higher than previous interglacial periods.

Moore: Tell me a little about each category of water plants you wrote about:

Sullivan: There are four categories of water plants and each one has a particular set of strategies or adaptations for surviving in water and wetlands. Diver is the playful name I give to plants that grow submerged in water. They float in the water at levels where there is sufficient light for photosynthesis, and are enabled by special air filled tissue to do so. A few are water pollinated, but some like Bladderwort produce lovely yellow or purple flowers above the water. Bladderworts are carnivorous plants that trap small aquatic animals in bladder traps. The cover illustration of Why Water Plants Don't Drown is of a bladderwort in flower and shows the underwater traps. Some of the most noxious aquatic plants such as hydrilla and water milfoils are divers. Many species of divers in marine habitats provide important nursery grounds for shrimp and fish.

Floaters include a disparate variety of species such as water hyacinths, duckweeds, mosquito fern and others. As the playful designation implies they float on the water surface, un-rooted in the soil. The leaves of water hyacinth act as sails and colonies like great rafts move on lakes and waterways. Water hyacinths invaded from South America and spread throughout the southeastern U.S. from plants given away at the International Cotton Exposition held in New Orleans in 1884. The exotic, purple flowers, with yellow encircled bull's eye nectar guides, attract pollinators.

The water lily and lotus are floating-leaf plants familiar to everyone. The circular or heart shaped leaf blades attached to long leaf stalks and float on the water surface. The leaf stalks attach deep underwater to horizontal buried stems. Inside the leaf stalks are hollow passageways for movement of gases from leaf blades downward to roots and back upward to leaf blades. I have dubbed this process snorkeling, which is common among the fourth category of wetland plants.

Waders are in the category of plants that grow in wet area with the upper part above water. The depth of water in which they grow varies. Many waders have proven to be snorkelers that are beneficial in oxygenating soils and ridding soils of methane. A few examples include cattails, the several species Spartina, bull tongue, mangroves, bald cypress, and cardinal flower. Leaves receive full sunlight unfiltered by water, have stiff supportive above water plants, and reproduce by seeds. Many in this category are wind pollinated grasses and sedges, which typically have reduced flower parts. Others such as the cardinal flower, with its spectacular red flowers, attract pollinators, in this case insects and hummingbirds.

Moore: Artist Susan Elliott is an ecologist as well as an artist, and her illustrations are beautiful. How did you and Susan coordinate the writing and illustrations for the book?

Sullivan: I feel very lucky to have found Susan to work with me on this book. Not only is she a wonderful artist, but she has a PhD in botany. We have never met although I feel like I know her. We worked entirely online, and our work began with my preparing a list of what I thought a reader would find helpful to have illustrated. She honed a method by trial and error aided by her knowledge of technique and software. A method evolved in which she emailed a "pencil" sketch attachment of each illustration, on which I commented as necessary, and she would adjust. She then colored using some computerized method, which is still mysterious to me.

Moore: Did the two of you have an audience in mind when you began work on the book?

Sullivan: I guess you could say we were passionate about making a book that would interest and entertain readers as much as we were interested in the topic. Aquatic and wetland plants are like desert plants in the sense that are found only in certain places. That enhances their specialness for me and digging into the natural history of water plants reveals layers of mystery.

Moore: Why is flooding a serious problem for plants if water plants don’t drown?

Sullivan: The title is a tongue in cheek because of course, drowning is a phenomenon that happens when lungs fill with water depriving us and any other land animal of oxygen. Plants don't have lungs, but their cells do need oxygen. When soils are flooded, water fills the air pockets between the soil particles and microorganisms use up the rest of the oxygen dissolved in water. Root cells become deprived of oxygen, which they need desperately. Water plants have ways of getting oxygen to the root cells that other plants don't have, and this is why they don't "drown."

Moore: Do you and Susan plan to work on another book together?

Sullivan: I’m open to the possibility, but we haven’t discussed it.