Writing the Sacred into the Real
In Writing the Sacred into the Real, poet and essayist Alison Hawthorne Deming describes locales that are dear to her because they are still shaped by nature. She begins along the shores of the North Atlantic, on Grand Manan Island in the Bay of Fundy, and moves on to Provincetown, Massachusetts; Tucson, Arizona; and Poamoho, Hawaii.
Deming argues that the farther we remove ourselves from wild settings, the farther we are removed from our spiritual centers. Offering nature writing as a deliverance from our frantic times, Deming encourages a stronger connection with our surroundings. She believes that the arts allow us to fall again “into harmony with place and each other,” to write the sacred into the real.
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Alison Hawthorne Deming
Alison Hawthorne Deming is the author of numerous works of nonfiction and poetry, most recently Zoologies: On Animals and the Human Spirit and the collections of poems Stairway to Heaven and Death Valley: Painted Light. She is currently the Agnese Nelms Haury Chair of Environment and Social Justice and Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Arizona.
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