Sisters of the Earth: Women's Prose and Poetry about Nature

The voices of nearly 100 women--white, black, Native American--sing out in this luminous anthology, which spans centuries, genres and literary careers from Willa Cather's to Sue Hubbell's. The thread that binds together the poetry, short stories and essays collected here is the harmonious relationship between women and nature that is about ``caring rather than controlling,'' as editor Anderson indicates. In her poem ``My Help Is in the Mountainsic ,'' Nancy Wood ( Hollering Sun ) becomes part of the sun-warmed rock that soothes her ``earthly wounds.'' In a prose reflection, ``The Miracle of Renewal,'' Laura Lee Davidson is rejuvenated by a year spent in the Canadian woods in 1914, which provided her with a ``gallery of mind-pictures.'' Both Linda Hogan's essay, ``Walking,'' and Elizabeth Coatsworth's poem, ``On the Hills,'' seek and find continuity in nature, as well as a kinship with the other times and places that is evoked by it. Taste and sensitivity are evident throughout the volume, whether tacit as nocturnal solitude or vocal as a feline ``howl . . . for the flame of yellow moons'' in Judith Minty's poem, ``Why Do You Keep Those Cats?'' Anderson is a freelance writer and editor. QPB selection. (Apr.)