Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry eds. by Elizabeth Bradfield, CMarie Fuhrman, and Derek Sheffield (review)

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• Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry eds. by Elizabeth Bradfield, CMarie Fuhrman, and Derek Sheffield
• Nathan Anderson

Elizabeth Bradfield, CMarie Fuhrman, and Derek Sheffield, eds., Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry. Seattle: Mountaineers Books, 2023. 400 pp. Paper, $29.95.

Cascadia Field Guide fits comfortably into the expanding genre of literary field guides but also distinguishes itself by providing a unique way of experiencing this rich bioregion through artwork, poetry, and prose. As someone who was born and raised in the Inland Northwest and who has crossed the Cascade mountains by car numerous times on trips from Spokane to Seattle, I must confess a question mark surfaced in my mind when first encountering the word "Cascadia" in the book's title. Fortunately, editors Elizabeth Bradfield, CMarie Fuhrman, and Derek Sheffield designed Cascadia for both uninformed and informed readers, from behind-the-window nature watchers and weekend trail walkers to serious hikers, artists, academics, and anyone with an interest in Cascadia. Not an easy task, admittedly. The opening pages include a map of Cascadia, followed by a thorough and engaging introduction in which the editors establish reasons for a Cascadia-focused literary field guide; discuss the origins of Cascadia; explain terms such as "bioregion" and "being"; describe stylistic choices, including the capitalization of names; provide insight into the book's unconventional organization; and acknowledge the many voices represented by writers and artists from diverse races, genders, and time periods.

Along with a satisfying selection of artists and authors, an array of plants, insects, and animals populate the four hundred pages of Cascadia. However, the method of organizing that content may or may not draw in readers. The editors divide the book into "thirteen communities," such as Urban Shore and Pine Forest, and then, using the term "being" rather than the more conventional "species," place "128 iconic beings" into those communities (17–18). The "beings" range from fireweed, Pacific wren, and pink salmon to lungwort [End Page 375] lichen, mosquito, ponderosa pine, and Bigg's killer whale. Each community contains artwork from a particular artist, and an ecological story then introduces each "being." In "Chum Salmon" readers learn that "Chum, Calico, or Dog Salmon gets one of their names from the Chinook Jargon word tzum, meaning 'spotted' or 'blazed,' and another from the fact that most people feed their dogs with this fish" (33). A poem or short prose piece follows each ecological story. It is worth mentioning that artists, authors, and titles of works are not listed in the table of contents—or in the index. If readers want to find a particular poem, they will need to flip pages until it appears, which can lead to frustration and sometimes to discovery (while trying to locate a poem by Linda Bierds, I discovered Jackson Holbert's excellent prose poem "A Short Note on the Names of Trees"). Therefore, navigating Cascadia's poems and other creative works is a little like walking through a forest: a certain pleasure results from not knowing exactly what lies ahead, but after hours trekking through thick brush, a trail marker is often a welcome sign.

While the book's organization may or may not appeal to readers, its content still pleases both eye and ear. In Aleria Jensen's "Muskeg Speaks" diction and tone evoke a distinct personality: "Call me the slow churn / of decomposition, / tannin and peat," and as the poem develops so does the voice: "You ask what resilience looks like, / where buoyancy lives—/ well, consider this an invitation" (48). In other poems the beings to which voices belong are human, such as in Robert Lashley's "The Homeboy Speaks to the Snake Lake Buckbeans." As noted in the book's introduction, Cascadia invites "a new way of seeing," and Lena Khalaf Tuffaha's "Inside the Terrarium" speaks directly to the idea of perspective (15). The poem's speaker watches a mountain beaver from behind the window of her house. After a series of questions directed toward the mountain beaver, the speaker wonders how it might view those inside the house: "I wonder about you, eyeing us, / how we spiral beyond the glass" (114). Or consider, for example, James Grabill's "Mosquito...