Chrysalis with John Fiege

Subscribe to Chrysalis at https://www.johnfiege.earth/

Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/38-brendan-hoffman-photographing-ecocide-in-ukraine

Listen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Captivate.

We are a few months away from the five-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The horrors of this war pepper the news on a daily basis. The victims are soldiers and civilians, adults and children, parents and grandparents. Russia is increasingly hitting civilian targets in Kyiv and destroying infrastructure across the country.

With this kind of constant trauma and suffering, it’s easy to lose track of the war’s impact on the non-human world. We might even feel guilty asking about the impacts on the natural world when entire towns are being destroyed and families are bombed as they sleep.

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But the assault on nature is a vitally important part of understanding the consequences of war. Rather than detracting from the human costs of conflict, looking closely at the ecological devastation expands and deepens our understanding of how people are affected by violence on this scale.

Brendan Hoffman is an acclaimed photographer whose work has been featured in National Geographic and shown at festivals and in galleries globally, earning him the Philip Jones Griffiths Award and support from the Magnum Foundation and the Pulitzer Center.

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Brendan was living in Moscow when Putin attacked Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Immediately, he began to cover the war, and he soon relocated to Kyiv, where he spent years covering the conflict for The New York Times.

As the war dragged on, a moment of relative calm within the fast-paced world of breaking news allowed Brendan to ask what impact this violence was having on nature. What he discovered was evidence of the destruction of nature being used as an active weapon of war. Much of his reporting began to circle around the relatively new concept of ecocide.

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But the ecological legacy of war is complex. While the direct impacts are horrendous, war can sometimes lead to unexpected ecological resilience—for example, with the absence of human activity. Brendan’s work dives deeply into this nuance and complexity.

In addition to documenting the assault on nature with his camera, Brendan also picked up a pen, culminating in a major article in The New York Times in 2025 called “Ukraine’s Ravaged Environment.”

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Brendan now has a young child and is spending the year back in the U.S., where his wife, who is Ukrainian and also a photographer, has a prestigious Nieman Fellowship at Harvard. I caught up with him last month when he was at the University at Buffalo giving a talk on his work.

I’m John Fiege, and this is Chrysalis. You can subscribe at johnfiege.earth, where you will also find show notes and all episodes of the podcast, plus my writing, photographs, and films.

Here is Brendan Hoffman.

• The New York Times: “Ukraine’s Ravaged Environment” by Brendan Hoffman
• https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/04/02/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-environment.html
• Brendan Hoffman: Official Website and Ukraine War Portfolio
• https://www.brendanhoffman.com/
• The Pulitzer Center: Brendan Hoffman Journalist Profile & Grantee Projects
• https://pulitzercenter.org/people/brendan-hoffman
• The Guardian: Ukraine to Prosecute Russia for 'Ecocide' Over Environmental War Crimes
• https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/30/ukraine-to-prosecute-russia-for-ecocide-over-environmental-war-crimes
• United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP): The Environmental Toll of the Conflict in Ukraine
• https://www.unep.org/resources/report/environmental-consequences-conflict-ukraine
• Turning Point Magazine: Ukraine: Love+War, a Review
• https://turningpointmag.org/2024/10/16/ukraine-lovewar-a-review/

This episode was edited by Domenica Klamm. Music is by Daniel Rodríguez Vivas. Mixing is by Morgan Honaker.

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Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/37-isabel-duarte-gray-tennessee-valley-authority

Listen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Captivate.

Isabel Duarte-Gray’s poem, “Tennessee Valley Authority,” takes its title from the energy company and public utility created by Congress during the New Deal and owned, to this day, by the federal government. Through hydropower projects and other economic development programs, the Tennessee Valley Authority sought to modernize and electrify the Tennessee River Valley, which stretches across parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia.

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By damming the river to create lakes and power, the Tennessee Valley Authority successfully created many jobs and lifted multitudes out of poverty, but there was a price for these large scale transformations. Entire towns and the surrounding ecosystems were flooded. 125,000 people were relocated. In 1966, the Tennessee Valley Authority dammed the Cumberland River, submerging the town of Kuttawa in Western Kentucky. All of the town’s residents were moved to a new location, which was then also named Kuttawa.

This town, Kuttawa, is where Isabel Duarte-Gray grew up—just one fascinating piece of her background. Her mom’s family has lived in the area for generations, but her dad walked with his siblings, unaccompanied, to the United States from Mexico when he was eight years old. Isabel grew up poor, between Mexican and white Western Kentuckian cultures, not fully at home in either, and then she found herself at Amherst College, followed by Harvard University for her PhD.

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“Tennessee Valley Authority” probes this history and relationship to land, imagining the creatures that have been displaced and observing the ones that have taken their place. Isabel explores her complex relationship to home, which invites us to do the same.

I’m John Fiege, and this is Chrysalis. You can subscribe at johnfiege.earth, where you will also find show notes and all episodes of the podcast, plus my writing, photographs, and films.

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“Tennessee Valley Authority” is one of the poems in Isabel Duarte-Gray’s collection of poetry, Even Shorn, which won the Linda Bruckheimer Series in Kentucky Literature, was a finalist in Poetry for the New England Book Awards, and was named to “The Best Books of 2021” from the Boston Globe. She is now Assistant Professor at Loyola University in New Orleans.

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This episode of Chrysalis is part of the Chrysalis Poets series. I spoke with Isabel on June 29, 2022.

Here is Isabel Duarte-Gray reading her poem, “Tennessee Valley Authority.”

The corpse boat split the lilies

in a black and heaving ribbon

in a final day on earth.

This lake ain't lake the way a god

shapes lakes with claws of ice.

A living man remembers when this hole

was not a place of many waters but

a city drowned in just a day.

Underneath the lilies can't you see

the roofs where finches threw a nest

for sowing panic grass and babies.

There was brides made in this place

where herons sweep at corners.

Mudcats breed here now their knowing whiskers

rooted. Home the only thing to root here

in these rooms we cannot save.

• Even Shorn by Isabel Duarte-Gray
• https://www.sarabandebooks.org/all-titles/p/even-shorn-isabel-duarte-grey
• Isabel Duarte-Gray's Loyola University Page
• https://www.loyno.edu/academics/faculty-and-staff-directory/isabel-duarte-gray
• Isabel Duarte-Gray's Poetry Foundation Page
• https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/isabel-duarte-gray-6161ff74a720c
• "Fallen Bridge" by Isabel Duarte-Gray
• https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/156609/fallen-bridge
• "Garden" by Isabel Duarte-Grey
• https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/156608/garden-61644221ab64a
• "Like As of Fire" by Isabel Duarte Gray
• https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/162600/like-as-of-fire
• "Like Hell You Are" by Isabel Duarte-Gray
• https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/156606/like-hell-you-are
• "Tennessee Valley Authority" by Isabel Duarte-Gray
• https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/156607/tennesse-valley-authority
• "Groom XII" by Isabel Duarte-Gray
• https://www.thedriftmag.com/groom-xii/
• "Cutter Quilt" by Isabel Duarte-Gray
• https://www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org/poems/cutter-quilt

This episode was researched by Lydia Montgomery and edited by Sarah Westrich. The podcast assistant is Domenica Klamm. Music is by Daniel Rodríguez Vivas. Mixing is by Morgan Honaker.

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Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/36-matt-mcpherson-apple-ketchup

Listen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Captivate.

It’s not everyday that you encounter a new recipe for ketchup. Most people wouldn’t even think of making their own ketchup. It’s one of the most ubiquitous and cheapest condiments in America.

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When we asked the celebrated Boston chef, Matt McPherson, to share a recipe on the podcast that represents sustainable food for him, he decided to bring a recipe for Apple Ketchup.

This is not your typical ketchup, and Matt is not your typical chef.

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For Matt, sustainability is an idea that applies to every aspect of the restaurant business and the food system. His approach to sustainability is expansive. It includes the food he buys, the meals he cooks, and the way he works with his employees.

I’m John Fiege, and this is Chrysalis. You can subscribe at johnfiege.earth, where you will also find show notes and all episodes of the podcast, plus my writing, photographs, and films.

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This episode of Chrysalis is part of the Chrysalis Kitchen series. I spoke with Matt on September 20, 2022, when he was running his first restaurant, Cafe Iterum, located in East Boston.

Here is Matt McPherson describing the recipe he brought with him: Apple Ketchup.

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• Iterum Foods Website
• https://iterumfoods.com/
• Matt McPherson's Medium profile
• https://medium.com/@matt_41270
• Matt McPherson's instagram
• https://www.instagram.com/chefmcpherson/?hl=en
• Matt McPherson's Take a Chef profile
• https://www.takeachef.com/en-us/chef/matthew-mcpherson?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic-seo&utm_content=en-us-chef-matthew-mcpherson

This episode was researched by Nina Bunn and edited by James Bowers. The podcast assistant is Domenica Klamm. Music is by Daniel Rodríguez Vivas. Mixing is by Morgan Honaker.

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Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/35-jennifer-huang-from-the-taiwan-cypress-in-alishan

Listen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Captivate.

There is so much going on Jennifer Huang’s poem, “From the Taiwan Cypress in Alishan,” starting with how the words are laid out on the page, with a wide blank space between two columns. It makes me wonder whether I should read across the page or down one column and then the other. The poem works either way.

Jennifer takes on the persona of the Cypress tree itself, and the magic flows from there.

I’m John Fiege, and this is Chrysalis. You can subscribe at johnfiege.earth, where you will also find show notes and all episodes of the podcast, plus my writing, photographs, and films.

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Jennifer Huang was born in Maryland to Taiwanese immigrants and is the author of Return Flight, winner of the 2021 Ballard Spahr Prize for Poetry from Milkweed Editions. Jennifer holds an MFA in poetry from the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan, and their poems have appeared in POETRY, The Rumpus, Narrative Magazine, and many other publications. Their other recognitions include The Academy of American Poets Prize, The Bain-Swiggett Poetry Prize, and the Brooklyn Poets Fellowship.

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This episode of Chrysalis is part of the Chrysalis Poets series. I spoke with Jennifer on October 5, 2022.

Here is Jennifer Huang reading their poem, “From the Taiwan Cypress in Alishan.”

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• Return Flight by Jennifer Huang
• https://milkweed.org/book/return-flight?srsltid=AU7gw4VdCtQtUTmS0vf-kTrPWDfgnchilHob9Cpz2pI4mIILy5BOQgzf
• Jennifer Huang's website
• https://www.huangjennifer.com/
• Jennifer Huang's Substack
• https://wildlyrewilding.substack.com/
• Jennifer Huang's poets.org page
• https://poets.org/poet/jennifer-huang
• “Departure” by Jennifer Huang
• https://onbeing.org/programs/jennifer-huang-departure/
• “Manifest” by Jennifer Huang
• https://www.poetrynw.org/poetry/jennifer-huang-manifest/
• “That dawn at the beach” and “Notes on Orange” by Jennifer Huang
• https://aaww.org/two-poems-by-jennifer-huang/
• “Procedure” by Jennifer Huang
• https://poems.com/poem/procedure/
• “Zuihitsu for Yushan” by Jennifer Huang
• https://aaww.org/zuihitsu-for-yushan/

This episode was researched by Elena Cebulash, Lydia Montgomery, and Nina Bunn and edited by Sarah Westrich and Kathryn Fair. The podcast assistant is Domenica Klamm. Music is by Daniel Rodríguez Vivas. Mixing is by Morgan Honaker.

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Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/34-anne-haven-mcdonnell-the-study

Listen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Captivate.

When she was in her twenties, Anne Haven McDonnell worked on an organic farm on an island in British Columbia. She made good friends and visited frequently in the years that followed. In her time there, she had some encounters with wolves, who live wild on the island, and she began to explore the tensions around co-existence with wolves.

As Anne turned her attention full-time to poetry, she began to write about wolves and the people who share space with them. On this episode, we dive into one of those poems: “The Study.”

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I’m John Fiege, and this is Chrysalis. You can subscribe at johnfiege.earth, where you will also find show notes and all episodes of the podcast, plus my writing, photographs, and films.

Anne Haven McDonnell lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she teaches at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her poems have been published widely, including in Orion Magazine, The American Journal of Poetry, and The Georgia Review. She is the author of Singing Under Snow, winner of the Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize, and Breath on a Coal, winner of the Halcyon Poetry Prize. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry and a MacDowell fellowship, and she has held residencies at the Andrews Forest and the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology.

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This episode of Chrysalis is part of the Chrysalis Poets series. I spoke with Anne on September 13, 2022.

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Here is Anne Haven McDonnell reading her poem, “The Study.”

• Singing Under Snow by Anne Haven McDonnell
• https://msupress.org/9781611865639/singing-under-snow/
• Breath on a Coal by Anne Haven McDonnell
• https://bookshop.org/p/books/breath-on-a-coal-anne-haven-mcdonnell/a856cb6da59bc77c?ean=9781734820898&affiliate=20964
• Living with Wolves by Anne Haven McDonnell
• https://www.splitrockreview.org/store/living-with-wolves
• Anne Haven McDonnell's profile on National Endowment for the Arts
• https://www.arts.gov/impact/literary-arts/creative-writing-fellows/anne-haven-mcdonnell
• Anne Haven McDonnell's profile on poets.org
• https://poets.org/poet/anne-haven-mcdonnell
• Anne Haven McDonnell's profile on MacDowell
• https://www.macdowell.org/artists/anne-haven-mcdonnell

This episode was researched by Nina Bunn and edited by Sarah Westrich, Kathryn Fair, and Alice McClain. The podcast assistant is Domenica Klamm. Music is by Daniel Rodríguez Vivas. Mixing is by Morgan Honaker.

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Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/33-jenny-rosenstrach-miso-mushroom-tacos-with-pickled-vegetables

Listen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Captivate.

Jenny Rosenstrach writes about food and how food can bring us together. Several years back, her kids started pushing her to think about the climate impacts of the recipes she was writing about, and she began to shift her cooking and writing toward plant-based meals. But rather than strictly abandon meat, she has experimented with greatly reducing her and her family’s consumption of meat.

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Jenny documented this shift on her many platforms, including her award-winning website, Dinner: A Love Story, and her Substack newsletter. She has written for The New York Times, Martha Stewart Living, and Bon Appétit and is a New York Times Bestselling author of many books, including Dinner: A Love Story, How to Celebrate Everything, and The Weekday Vegetarians.

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I’m John Fiege, and this is Chrysalis. You can subscribe at johnfiege.earth, where you will also find show notes and all episodes of the podcast, plus my writing, photographs, and films.

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This episode of Chrysalis is part of the Chrysalis Kitchen series, where we kick off our conversation with the discussion of a recipe. I spoke with Jenny on July 12, 2022.

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Here is Jenny Rosenstrach describing the recipe she brought with her: Miso-Mushroom Tacos with Pickled Vegetables.

• The Weekday Vegetarians by Jenny Rosenstrach
• https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/634444/the-weekday-vegetarians-by-jenny-rosenstrach/?fbclid=IwAR3KVV6HRoI8_p7kb9MtJEc6zgbnQxzltvaWQKwHhpUnP20CuHkEpPpDpk0
• Dinner: A Love Story by Jenny Rosenstrach
• https://www.harpercollins.com/products/dinner-a-love-story-jenny-rosenstrach?variant=32122670645282
• How to Celebrate Everything by Jenny Rosenstrach
• https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/234273/how-to-celebrate-everything-by-jenny-rosenstrach/
• Dinner: A Love Story - Website
• https://www.dinneralovestory.com/
• Jenny Rosenstrach's Substack
• https://substack.com/@dinneralovestory
• Jenny Rosenstrach's Linktree
• https://linktr.ee/dinneralovestory
• Jenny Rosenstrach's Latest Articles in Bon Appétit
• https://www.bonappetit.com/contributor/jenny-rosenstrach?srsltid=AfmBOopyaMuJ50Qrncxwm7XJpnJxAm15QMhTXo-QBjfhsxCK4KXq1B6S

This episode was researched by Nina Bunn and edited by Sarah Westrich and Marta Kondratiuk. The podcast assistant is Domenica Klamm. Music is by Daniel Rodríguez Vivas. Mixing is by Morgan Honaker.

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Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/32-jennifer-elise-foerster-leaving-tulsa

Listen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Captivate.

Poet Jennifer Elise Foerster writes in her poem, “Leaving Tulsa,” about a warning from her grandmother:

When they see open land

they only know to take it.

Jennifer has German and Dutch heritage from her father’s side, and Mvskoke heritage from her mother’s side, which includes the grandmother she mentions in her poem.

When they see open land

they only know to take it.

It’s a chilling line that conjures the long history of European displacement of indigenous peoples and the theft of land that has continued for centuries.

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In my conversation with Jennifer, she talks about amnesia and the collective act of forgetting our history. Her poetry is an act of remembering. Her memories reveal a dramatic transformation of the cultural relationship to the land that came with this displacement of Mvskoke people.

I’m John Fiege, and this is Chrysalis. You can subscribe at johnfiege.earth, where you will also find show notes and all episodes of the podcast, plus my writing, photographs, and films.

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Jennifer Elise Foerster is the author of three books of poetry, The Maybe Bird (2022), Bright Raft in the Afterweather (2018), and Leaving Tulsa (2013). She is the recipient of an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship and a Lannan Foundation Writing Residency Fellowship. She was a Robert Frost Fellow in Poetry at the Breadloaf Writers Conference and a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University. She currently teaches for several writing programs and serves as the literary assistant to Joy Harjo, the 23rd U.S. Poet Laureate. She lives in San Francisco and is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma.

This episode of Chrysalis is part of the Chrysalis Poets series. I spoke with Jennifer on November 15, 2022.

Here is Jennifer Elise Foerster reading her poem, “Leaving Tulsa.”

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• Jennifer Elise Foerster's Website:
• https://www.jenniferfoerster.com/
• The Maybe-Bird by Jennifer Elise Foerster
• https://the-song-cave.com/products/the-maybe-bird-by-jennifer-elise-foerster
• Bright Raft in the Afterweather by Jennifer Elise Foerster
• https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/bright-raft-in-the-afterweather
• Leaving Tulsa by Jennifer Elise Foerster
• https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/leaving-tulsa
• Jennider Elise Foerster on poets.org
• https://poets.org/poet/jennifer-elise-foerster
• When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, edited by Joy Harjo, with LeAnne Howe and Jennifer Elise Foerster
• https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393356809

This episode was researched by Nina Bunn and edited by Sarah Westrich and Kathryn Fair. The podcast assistant is Domenica Klamm. Music is by Daniel Rodríguez Vivas. Mixing is by Morgan Honaker.

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Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/31-joan-naviyuk-kane-exceeding-beringia

Listen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Captivate.

The poet Joan Naviyuk Kane ends her poem, “Exceeding Beringia,” with a call “to make our land our home anew.” I love this unusual phrasing, “our land our home,” connecting the two as one.

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Joan is writing about a specific area of land. She is Iñupiaq, and her ancestral land includes Beringia, which is a region between Russia and Alaska. Her poem, “Exceeding Beringia,” explores the area’s troubled colonial history and it’s ecological devastation, but it also feels like the beginning of a new era of reclaiming the culture, the land, and the relationships that have been under attack for so long.

I’m John Fiege, and this is Chrysalis. You can subscribe at johnfiege.earth, where you will also find show notes and all episodes of the podcast, plus my writing, photographs, and films.

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Joan Naviyuk Kane’s many books of poetry, including The Cormorant Hunter’s Wife, Hyperboreal, and Milk Black Carbon. She is the recipient of many prestigious awards and fellowships, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, Radcliffe Fellowship, Whiting Award, Paul Engle Prize, and Shelley Memorial Award. I spoke with Joan on July 14, 2022, when she was living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and teaching at Harvard. She now lives in Portland, Oregon, where she is Chair and Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Reed College.

This episode of Chrysalis is part of the Chrysalis Poets series.

Here is Joan Naviyuk Kane reading her poem, “Exceeding Beringia.”

Joan Naviyuk Kane

“I remember the birds ever so many of them when I hunted with the weapons of a child. The water was covered in their numbers, red as the flowers of summer on the mountain. The red phalarope were our prey of choice, there were so many. Today, these birds return yearly, but now only a few return home in spring to show us they remain a part of the land, as we are.” —Herbert Aġiyġaq Anungazuk

Nimiqtuumaruq aktunaamik: bound with rope.

This land with its laws that serve as wire

and root to draw us together. Sinew, snare,

the unseen growth of the green tree

many rivers south whose stump now shoals

into use. Through layer upon layer of land

submerged, of ice, of ash, through lakes

that cannot be the eyes of the earth.

The phreatomagmatic blue sprawl

of the Devil Mountain Maar, the Kuzitrun

drained by inland veins scrawling tributaries

with name upon vanishing name.

The giant granite tors at Serpentine:

Iyat, the cooking pot sentineled

by unscoured stone as it towers

endlessly into the flickering sky.

Auksruaq, like the blood that seeps

across such hot and dim and strenuous

times where one still cannot be serene:

red phalarope, might we follow,

leaving the meadow wet with tears?

From nest to fledge and then to move again

right out to sea, circling tight vortices

to upwell food. Let us lose our grief

in great rafts as we translate the renamed

straits. Our limbs, like yours, are burnt

and broken. Let us at last make noise

of this truth as we return together

to wear another furrow, to make portage,

to make our land our home anew.

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• Joan Naviyuk Kane Website
• https://www.thejoankane.com
• The Cormorant Hunter’s Wife By Joan Kane
• https://upcolorado.com/university-of-alaska-press/the-cormorant-hunter-s-wife
• Hyperboreal By Joan Naviyuk Kane
• https://upittpress.org/books/9780822962625/
• Milk Black Carbon By Joan Naviyuk Kane
• https://upittpress.org/books/9780822964513/
• Dark Traffic By Joan Naviyuk Kane
• https://upittpress.org/books/9780822966623/
• with snow pouring southward past the window By Joan Naviyuk Kane
• https://upittpress.org/books/9780822967668/
• Sublingual By Joan Naviyuk Kane
• https://finishinglinepress.com/product/sublingual-by-joan-naviyuk-kane/
• A Few Lines in the Manifest By Joan Naviyuk Kane
• https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Few_Lines_in_the_Manifest.html?id=vmLquQEACAAJ
• Another Bright Departure By Joan Naviyuk Kane
• https://www.thejoankane.com/
• Ex Machina By Joan Naviyuk Kane
• https://asterismbooks.com/product/ex-machina
• The 2017 Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology: A Selection of the Shortlist By Sue Goyette, Joan Naviyuk Kane, George Szirtes
• https://www.strandbooks.com/the-2017-griffin-poetry-prize-anthology-a-selection-of-the-shortlist-9781487002329.html
• Circumpolar Connections: Creative Indigenous Geographies of the Arctic By Liisa-Rávná Finbog, Joan Naviyuk Kane, Johannes Riquet
• https://www.weslpress.org/9780819501899/circumpolar-connections/

This episode was researched by Elena Cebulash and edited by Alice McClain, Sarah Westrich, and Kathryn Fair. Music is by Daniel Rodríguez Vivas. Mixing is by Morgan Honaker.

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Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/30-carey-thornton

Listen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Captivate.

See my series of photographs from Rainier Beach Urban Farm & Wetlands.

Tilth is a word that’s not used much anymore. It comes from the Old English word “tilþ,” which is spelled in a funny Old English way and meant “labor” or “work,” especially the “labour or work in the cultivation of the soil,” as the Oxford English Dictionary describes it. Examples from the dictionary include, from the year 1580, “Tilth well done, in season due;” or, from the year 1660, “After four years tilth, lay down your land.”

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Today, the word has come to mean the physical condition of the soil and its suitability for planting.

Back in the Middle Ages, tilth also had a figurative meaning: “The cultivation of knowledge, morality, religion, the mind, etc.” In other words, we can cultivate ourselves in a way that good things can grow, similar to how we cultivate the soil to grow great food.

Tilth Alliance in Seattle, Washington, embraces all of these meanings of their namesake. It’s an organization that grew out of a regional network of organic farmers and gardeners in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s. Today, they define themselves as a community of “farmers, gardeners and eaters” united in the desire “to build a sustainable, healthy and equitable food future.”

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Carey Thornton has been gardening and teaching classes with Tilth Alliance for many years, and she joins me to talk about the work she and others are doing at Tilth Alliance. We spoke on July 15, 2022.

I’m John Fiege, and this is Chrysalis. You can subscribe at johnfiege.earth, where you will also find show notes and all episodes of the podcast, plus my writing, photographs, and films.

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On a trip to Seattle, I was able to visit Tilth Alliance’s Rainier Beach Urban Farm & Wetlands, which is an amazing oasis and community space in the middle of Seattle. You can see my photographs from Rainier Beach at https://www.johnfiege.earth/rainier-beach-urban-farm-wetlands/.

Here is Carey Thornton.

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• Tilth Alliance
• https://tilthalliance.org
• Rainier Beach Urban Farm & Wetlands
• https://tilthalliance.org/our-work/urban-farms-gardens/rainier-beach-urban-farm-wetlands/
• What Does “Tilth” Mean, Anyway?
• https://tilthalliance.org/blog/what-does-tilth-mean-anyway/

This episode was researched by Lydia Montgomery and edited by Sofia Chang, with additional editing by Morgan Honaker. Music is by Daniel Rodríguez Vivas. Mixing is by Morgan Honaker.

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Subscribe to Chrysalis at https://www.johnfiege.earth/

Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/29-henri-cole-haiku

Listen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Captivate.

Henri Cole wrote his poem, "Haiku," after visiting a jellyfish exhibit at an aquarium. In the poem, he places himself on the beach, in red pajamas, observing and contemplating what he calls the “unnatural cycles” that have emerged in our world.

He jumps between the global and the self, switching between third person and first person, connecting our individual lives to the uncanny and unsettling natural world that we find ourselves in, in a way that poetry seems best positioned to explore.

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I’m John Fiege, and this episode of Chrysalis is part of the Chrysalis Poets series.

Henri was born in Japan to a French mother and an American father. He is the author of a memoir and twelve books of poetry. His awards are numerous and include the Jackson Prize, the Kingsley Tufts Award, the Rome Prize, the Berlin Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Lenore Marshall Award, a fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the Award of Merit Medal in Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has taught at many colleges and universities, including Smith, Reed, Brandeis, Columbia, Harvard, and Yale. He currently teaches at Claremont McKenna College.

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I spoke to Henri on June 29, 2022, and we had a horrible international internet connection with a delay. We’ve edited the conversation so it sounds more natural, but please forgive any remaining moments of awkward pauses and jumps.

Here is Henri Cole reading his poem, “Haiku.”

“Haiku” by Henri Cole

After the sewage flowed into the sea

and took the oxygen away, the fishes fled,

but the jellies didn’t mind. They stayed

and ate up the food the fishes left behind.

I sat on the beach in my red pajamas

and listened to the sparkling foam,

like feelings being fustigated. Nearby,

a crayfish tugged on a string. In the distance,

a man waved. Unnatural cycles seemed to be

establishing themselves, without regard to our lives.

Deep inside, I could feel a needle skip:

Autumn dark.

Murmur of the saw.

Poor humans.

Henri Cole. Photo by Claudia Gianvenuti for the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, 2009. Courtesy of Henri Cole.

Henri Cole is an American poet who has authored numerous collections and garnered a plethora of vestiges of acclaim for his far-reaching and deeply moving works. Such recognition includes the American Academy of Arts and Letter’s Rome Prize, the Berlin Prize, and, most recently, membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

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Born in Fukuoka, Japan, Cole grew up in Virginia, eventually pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree at the College of William and Mary. Through further educational pursuits, Cole also achieved a Master of Arts at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, as well as a Master of Fine Arts at Columbia University.

Cole is the author of numerous collections of poetry spanning five decades, including 2003’s Middle Earth, which won the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He released Gravity and Center, a collection of sonnets across 29 years, this past May. In addition to these collections, he wrote a memoir in 2018 called Orphic Paris. Cole has also collaborated with visual artists Jenny Holzer and Kiki Smith, with an example of such work being the 2004 installation Purple Cross, which presents lines pulled from “Blur” (a poem from Middle Earth) using LEDs.

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In addition to his aforementioned awards, Cole has also received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Ingram Merrill Foundation, and Carmargo Foundation. He has previously served as executive director of the Academy of American Poets for six years and editor for poetry of the New Republic for four years. Having taught at Ohio State, Harvard, and Yale, he now works at Claremont McKenna College as a Professor of Literature.

• Henri Cole's Website:
• http://henricole.com/
• Poet Henri Cole reads, March 2022
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4DgPs1YIQ8
• The Other Love: Poems by Henri Cole
• https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619039/theotherlove/
• Blizzard: Poems by Henri Cole
• https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374603212/blizzard/
• Middle Earth: Poems by Henri Cole
• https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374529284/middleearth/
• Gravity and Center: Selected Sonnets, 1994-2002 by Henri Cole
• https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374612832/gravityandcenter/

This episode was researched by Brodie Mutschler and edited by Sarah Westrich, with additional editing by Morgan Honaker. Music is by Daniel Rodríguez Vivas. Mixing is by Morgan Honaker.

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