As a basic food, nothing could be more appropriate. As humble as a food can be, beans can provide the center of a nutritious diet, as they did for Native Americans for countless centuries before the coming of Europeans, as they still do for many people through the world. Beans can be a source of pride for those who grow them and a source of humor for anyone. Whatever the beans, the names reflect the lives of the people who lived by them. The names give us a glimpse into the hopes, fears, desires, aspirations, and accomplishments of generations of people, and the first function of this sequence is simply to let the names of the beans speak for themselves in small, discrete poems.
Handwritten text runs around the bean names.
Beginning in the mechanics of evolution, this free association text includes the nutritional value of beans, the symbiosis of beans with other plants, fights for beans in Brazil, beans in religion, the symbolism of beans in dreams, beans as omens and as part of such folklore as banshees, and, of course, a story about a child who put a bean in his nose where it later sprouted. The generous and casual progression of this text around the fixed names of beans strikes a pleasant balance, and presents an unpretentious view of life and history. As elsewhere, Knowles edits the writing of naturalists into poetry. In his introduction to the book, Charles Doria points out Knowles' affinities with Homer and Hesiod. Blue lake and Tendrette, a little extra room in the row.