Tributary Voices: Literary and Rhetorical Exploration of the Colorado River by Paul A. Formisano (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Tributary Voices: Literary and Rhetorical Exploration of the Colorado River by Paul A. Formisano Ned Schaumberg Paul A. Formisano, Tributary Voices: Literary and Rhetorical Exploration of the Colorado River. Reno: U of Nevada P, 2022. 272 pp. Paper, $45. Tributary Voices offers a tripartite argument where each component seems clear and obvious when considered separately. But by weaving these arguments together across genres and cultures, Paul A. Formisano offers a holistic understanding of the glaring absences in mainstream discourse surrounding the Colorado River that is sorely needed amidst the environmental and political crises magnifying each other throughout the watershed. Most simply, Formisano points out how “the frontier, garden, and wilderness myths [that] have powerfully informed the textual production of the Colorado River” belie the diversity of cultures strategically appropriating elements of those myths (12). In other words, communities throughout the watershed describe their relationships with the Colorado in ways that gesture toward common conceptions while carving out distinct features. At the same time, Formisano shows how this diversity of “tributary voices” is not a new understanding but a set of long-standing, ongoing traditions with the potential to “reveal alternative epistemologies and practices . . . that offer pathways by which to both acknowledge the challenges before us today and offer hope for the future” (18). The breadth of source material and Formisano’s thoughtful interconnection thereof make Tributary Voices a welcome inclusion to studies of western North America. Each chapter juxtaposes a well-known Colorado River discourse with a group of tributary voices in conversation with it. From female river runners (chapter 3), to Hispano and Latina/o discourse communities on both sides of the [End Page 183] border (chapter 4), the Navajo Nation (chapter 5), and stewardship-focused Mormons (chapter 6), Formisano shows how allegedly tributary voices have long played integral roles in discussions of the Colorado River by directly and indirectly responding to ostensibly dominant texts. Conversation and interconnection are also essential to the theoretical framework outlined in chapter 1. Since, Formisano argues, “the watershed operates as both a metaphor and a physical entity that implies and delineates boundaries,” the “convergence of ecological and rhetorical frameworks” can lead to a “rhetorical listening” that “opens up a space in which we contemplate other stories and relationships to the Colorado with the goal of enhancing our understanding of where we and others stand on particular issues, especially when common ground is hard to come by” (23, 47). I emphasize this strategic juxtaposition because it questions the thirst for narrowly conceived “innovation” or “groundbreaking” argumentation in the same way the fictional and nonfictional texts it examines question technological innovation and/or literal ground breaking as ends in themselves throughout the Colorado River watershed. The term “tributary voices” could, out of context, imply that these perspectives remain marginal in value or importance to broader river discourses. Formisano attempts to argue the opposite, though could have more clearly extended the elegant metaphors he introduces to do so: “like a river’s tributaries that mix and mingle, often in turbulent ways with the dominant (mainstem) reaches of a water course, these tributary voices converse with and challenge genres that have traditionally shaped western water use and management” (18). But this describes the value of that process as well. If the Colorado can only flow in totality, with its myriad source waters mixing and merging, the same holds true of Colorado River discourse; all components are essential to the whole. Moreover, by outlining the historical mechanisms by which the “mainstem” of the Colorado River was chosen as the result of political machination and rhetorical framing, Formisano shows how tributary is not so much a scientific or geographic designation as a political one (8–9). I would argue this definition of “tributary” has profound implications for the book’s textual archive: a tributary voice is marginalized [End Page 184] as the result of a political process (often driven by logics of capitalist expansion, American triumphalism, racial hierarchy), not because it is less valuable or important to the larger understanding of what Formisano calls a “watershed ecology.” Regardless, the combinations of source materials within Tributary Voices make it a valuable resource for those looking to expand their...