In the first country of places
Subtitle: nature, poetry, and childhood memory
By: Louise Chawla.
Series: SUNY series in environmental and architectural phenomenology
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 1994
Place of publication: Albany
Language: eng
Number of pages: 234
Subjects: American poetry -- 20th century -- History and criticism.; Children in literature.; Psychoanalysis and literature.; Psychology in literature.; Memory in literature.; Nature in literature.
Description: This book integrates poetry and psychology to explore how people shape their childhood place memories and self-identities in conformity with their philosophies of nature. Drawing upon written work and original interviews, the book describes uses of memory through the perspectives of five contemporary American poets: William Bronk, David Ignatow, Audre Lorde, Marie Ponsot, and Henry Weinfield.

These authors describe their relationships with nature and childhood in the context of major Western traditions of philosophy and religion. Each poet confronts the Western image of an alien nature within which histories of individuals are insignificant, and three poets elaborate alternative versions of connection with nature and their own past.

The book closes by suggesting how the practice of psychology may assimilate principles of phenomenology and hermeneutics that point to a new paradigm of connection with childhood and with nature.
Notes: Includes bibliograpichal references (p. 201-227) and index.