{"id":44281,"date":"2019-04-28T11:13:46","date_gmt":"2019-04-28T17:13:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=44281"},"modified":"2019-04-28T18:25:16","modified_gmt":"2019-04-29T00:25:16","slug":"shards-of-desert-delight-in-ellen-meloys-seasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/shards-of-desert-delight-in-ellen-meloys-seasons\/","title":{"rendered":"Shards of Desert Delight in Ellen Meloy\u2019s Seasons"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In his introduction to Ellen Meloy\u2019s Seasons: Desert Sketches<\/em>, Doug Fabrizio, the host of KUER\u2019s RadioWest<\/em>, describes Meloy as \u201csassy and wise,\u201d her writing as \u201cfunny and beautiful and almost always surprising.\u201d Before Meloy\u2019s untimely death in 2004, the Pulitzer Prize finalist and Whiting Award winner made regular trips to Salt Lake City from her home in Bluff, Utah to read aloud short essays for a public radio program. Transcribed and collected here for the first time in print, Meloy\u2019s nonfiction sparkles, taunts, and ensnares the reader with her incisive humor and stunning depictions of desert landscapes and wildlife.<\/p>\n

Meloy\u2019s influence looms large over the environmental and literary communities across the American West. In her more biting takedowns of oblivious tourists, dishonorable politicians, and hipster bumper stickers, her writing is inescapably reminiscent of Edward Abbey, though her appeals to the reader are less misanthropic. She strikes, instead, a compelling balance of astonishment and wit. Amy Irvine\u2019s Desert Cabal: A New Season in the Wilderness<\/em><\/a>, another recent Torrey House Press release, is certainly of the same ilk, alongside other great writers of the rural West like Annie Proulx \u2014 whose terrific foreword to Seasons <\/em>gives us some of the collection\u2019s highlights \u2014 and James Galvin, poet of the high prairie. Similarly rooted in the iconic landscape around her, Meloy first worked as an artist and curator before moving on to a life of writing and river guiding. The book\u2019s lyric sketches are accompanied by some of Meloy\u2019s own black-and-white drawings, little desert shards seen up close and through her careful eye.<\/p>\n

Though Seasons<\/em> looks primarily at the natural world in proximity, it also affords us small glimpses into Meloy\u2019s everyday life. The first essay, after all, is fittingly titled, \u201cI Stapled My Hair to the Roof.\u201d One of the real joys of reading the collection, aside from the simple pleasure afforded by her beautifully descriptive language, is her spectacular humor. She wins me over with her charming self-deprecation, at one point referring to herself \u2014 \u201cthe only person in North America\u201d who doesn\u2019t own a gun \u2014 as a \u201ctoken, squishy, white dough ball of liberalism.\u201d Her gift for irony and her critical eye often come together in moments of a distinct gotcha<\/em> brand of hilarity. In \u201cAnimal News,\u201d she begins one paragraph, \u201cWesterners live closer to wildlife than most people.\u201d I nod and underline the sentence, recalling instances of tourists approaching moose for selfies and even putting a baby bison in the back of their rental car in Yellowstone. “I would never<\/em> do such a thing,” I revel in believing. Meloy continues, \u201cWhen we see an elk we know if it is right side up. We know the difference between a coyote and a poodle.\u201d Well, she got me. But there\u2019s so much delight here \u2014 Right side up! A poodle! I\u2019m tickled by the absurdity, and I find myself laughing at my own hubris.<\/p>\n

These kinds of moves are precisely how Meloy earns her more exhortative moments, like in \u201cWest Virginia,\u201d when she gives advice on how to approach any new place:<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t carry a map to the mall, carry a bird book. If there are neither birds nor books you\u2019ve learned a telling feature of the place. Find a toehold. Slow down. Pay attention. Go deep. Ask why people call their landscape home, what they love or fear, what is blessed, what is destroyed.<\/p>\n

Even whatever\u2019s feared or destroyed does not escape Meloy\u2019s watch; it still has value here. To that point, one essay in Seasons <\/em>is all about her local dump. As she heads toward the landfill to do some scavenging, I can almost see her turn on her heel with a mischievous wink to add, \u201cIf your Tevas melt, it\u2019s probably not a good day to scavenge.\u201d Another vivid delight.<\/p>\n

Meloy also wins me over every time her weirdly specific knowledge pops up in strategic, factual deposits, such as \u201cin the Middle Ages, people believed that goose embryos developed inside mussels;\u201d or there being no word in the Navajo (Din\u00e9) language for freckles;<\/em> or how the moose\u2019s awkward anatomy means it \u201cmust spread their feet outward or get down on their knees to eat ground vegetation.\u201d The natural world is not solely noble and sacred; in fact, it\u2019s just as goofy and nonsensical as we are.<\/p>\n

What is perhaps most surprising about returning to these essays from the late \u201890s is how politically and culturally relevant they still are. In \u201cSick of Election,\u201d Meloy laments:<\/p>\n

What has become of the honorable and decent public servant? You won\u2019t find one in either political party, so kill your television.<\/p>\n

Snagged on a reef of intolerance and self-interest, we look for heroes in the wrong places.<\/p>\n

Her aforementioned takedown of a hipster bumper sticker that reads \u201cI\u2019d rather be hunting and gathering\u201d drives a steak knife into the heart of the urban liberal ethos. Meloy calls the belief that \u201cwe can live off the land and eat food close to the source\u201d an \u201cillusion.\u201d I, for one, am too busy laughing at the irony to feel bullied. Sure, I want to be closer to wildlife, to the source, to the land Meloy lived and breathed every day. Getting there always involves a few missteps, like stapling one\u2019s hair to the roof or kissing a toxic toad or scraping an old sticker off my bumper, but Seasons<\/em> is here to put a voice to the delight of it all.<\/p>\n

For fans of Meloy\u2019s work, reading Seasons<\/em> is a no-brainer. But even if you\u2019re new to her legacy, like I was, expect to be charmed and awed all the same. Ellen Meloy\u2019s deep curiosity for the world around her is the example Seasons<\/em> gives us for a way forward \u2014 a way that\u2019s more open to compassion, joy, humor, and each other. Ultimately, Meloy\u2019s hope in these essays was to be increasingly a part of the red desert world she called home. In the last piece of the collection, she writes, \u201cI cannot exist in Canyon Country unless I take it into myself and discover it on my very breath. All longing converges on a single piece of geography, my red rock desert home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here the late Ellen Meloy still is, Canyon Country on her breath transcribed to the page for us, too, to take in.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Seasons: Desert Sketches<\/em>
\nEllen Meloy
\nTorrey House Press
\n2019
\n93 pp.
\n$14.95<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Legacy of Ellen Meloy: Friends and Writers Celebrate a Utah Icon<\/em>,\u00a0<\/b>featuring Amy Irvine, Steven Trimble, Greer Chesher,\u00a0and Elaine Clark.\u00a0Wednesday, May 1 at 7 p.m.,\u00a0<\/b>Weller Book Works<\/a>, Salt Lake City.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his introduction to Ellen Meloy\u2019s Seasons: Desert Sketches, Doug Fabrizio, the host of KUER\u2019s RadioWest, describes Meloy as \u201csassy and wise,\u201d her writing as \u201cfunny and beautiful and almost always surprising.\u201d Before Meloy\u2019s untimely death in 2004, the Pulitzer Prize finalist and Whiting Award winner made regular […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1647,"featured_media":44282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2589,35],"tags":[3420,827,2333,1061],"class_list":["post-44281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-reviews-literary-arts","category-literary-arts","tag-amy-irvine","tag-edward-abbey","tag-ellen-meloy","tag-torrey-house-press"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/seasons.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-22 17:16:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1647"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44281"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44291,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44281\/revisions\/44291"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}