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Barry Lopez passed away yesterday evening, making his last great journey.
His work –– graceful, meticulous, ethical, compassionate, from Arctic Dreams to Common Ground to Horizon & far beyond –– shaped & will go on to shape countless lives, hearts & landscapes...
1/9
His work –– graceful, meticulous, ethical, compassionate, from Arctic Dreams to Common Ground to Horizon & far beyond –– shaped & will go on to shape countless lives, hearts & landscapes...
1/9
Barry knew that no landscape speaks with a single voice; that place is always polyglot.
His writing recognised this, speaking w/ the energy & variety of a braided river, picking new courses & channels through archaeology, geology, oral history & natural history...
2/9
His writing recognised this, speaking w/ the energy & variety of a braided river, picking new courses & channels through archaeology, geology, oral history & natural history...
2/9
"Stories people tell have a way of taking care of them", he wrote, "If stories come to you, care for them & learn to give them away where they're needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That's why we put these stories in each other's memories."
3/9
3/9
Barry gave us stories to help us stay alive.
Stories of love, care, generosity & land, of the grace-notes of the canyon wren, of petroglyphs carrying wisdom across deep human time.
And stories of warning & horror, too––of exploitation and wreckage...
4/9 https://lithub.com/barry-lopez-love-in-a-time-of-terror/
Stories of love, care, generosity & land, of the grace-notes of the canyon wren, of petroglyphs carrying wisdom across deep human time.
And stories of warning & horror, too––of exploitation and wreckage...
4/9 https://lithub.com/barry-lopez-love-in-a-time-of-terror/
The range & reach of Barry's work makes a nonsense of labels such as 'nature writer' or 'travel writer'.
His subjects were people and land––and these of course are subjects boundless in their breadth, infinite in their complexity & fathomless in their depth...
5/9
His subjects were people and land––and these of course are subjects boundless in their breadth, infinite in their complexity & fathomless in their depth...
5/9
For me, as for so many, Barry's work was formative not just at the moment of first contact, but durably, profoundly.
He exploded my sense of what 'non-fiction' could be, what it might achieve.
He was my north star, the writer who made me a writer...
6/9 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/14/horizon-by-barry-lopez-review
He exploded my sense of what 'non-fiction' could be, what it might achieve.
He was my north star, the writer who made me a writer...
6/9 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/14/horizon-by-barry-lopez-review
Last year, though he was ill, Barry drove across Oregon to meet me in Portland.
We spent the afternoon together before a public conversation at Powells.
I had a chance to try and tell him what he & his work meant to me; to hug him & laugh with him.
7/9
We spent the afternoon together before a public conversation at Powells.
I had a chance to try and tell him what he & his work meant to me; to hug him & laugh with him.
7/9
He gave me as a gift a rock he'd picked up high in Antarctica; a ventifact of black stone, sculpted by wind & ice into a strange, smooth-sided almost-polygon, enigmatic & otherworldly.
Such kindness.
It lives on my writing desk as an anchor-point, an object to think with.
8/9
Such kindness.
It lives on my writing desk as an anchor-point, an object to think with.
8/9
For those wishing to know more of Barry's astonishing life and work, @NPR have this hour published an obituary.
Please, if you feel so moved, share memories & reflections of Barry and his work here in this thread.
Truly, a giant has passed. https://www.npr.org/2020/12/26/948863127/barry-lopez-acclaimed-author-and-traveler-beyond-many-horizons-dies-at-75
Please, if you feel so moved, share memories & reflections of Barry and his work here in this thread.
Truly, a giant has passed. https://www.npr.org/2020/12/26/948863127/barry-lopez-acclaimed-author-and-traveler-beyond-many-horizons-dies-at-75
