Interview with John Price: Part 7

How have you encouraged your own children to connect with the natural world? 

Our three sons are young—eleven, nine, and two—but when it comes to nurturing a connection to nature, I don’t think you can start too young. There are many ways to do this, I think. The final chapter of Man Killed by Pheasant describes an afternoon we spent as a family on a small Iowa prairie, identifying wildflowers and telling the stories of our immigrant ancestors, in the hopes that our children will see their lives as being intimately entwined with place. We’ve also taken extended family trips to natural areas, but that’s not always possible given limited time and resources. So, most of our efforts are concentrated on the daily, often unexpected, but still informative encounters with nature occurring closer to home—in the backyard, with pets, in the garden. I write about a number of these small encounters in this memoir, in the lives of my children and in my own childhood. I think children can teach adults a thing or two about intimacy with nature, as well, and that has certainly been the case for me. They’re more willing than most adults to explore the world with their senses and to openly marvel at what they find there. They’re also more willing to defend the defenseless—to help the injured bird, to mourn the fallen tree, to pick up the stray can or candy wrapper. They’re not afraid to get their hands dirty. I think part of my job as a parent is to be a good steward of my child’s sense of kinship with the natural world, to nurture it and learn from it myself. I don’t know if it will make a difference in their lives or in the life of this planet—I certainly hope it does—but I already know it has made a positive difference in my own.   

Excerpt from "On Kalsow Prairie (A Postlude)" in Man Killed by Pheasant and Other Kinships

When viewed from the road, Kalsow Prairie is nearly invisible against the taller corn of the surrounding fields. If not for the wooden sign, we might have missed it entirely. At 160 acres, Kalsow is what is commonly called a postage-stamp prairie, one of the last scattered vestiges of native tallgrass. I've always been intrigued by that metaphor, the idea that such places convey messages across space and time, which is true in a way. To those trying to restore prairie on cultivated or otherwise disturbed ground, these postage stamps are the guardians of heritage, the deliverers of seed and ancient knowledge. If they disappear, as many do, then it may not be possible for the land to go home again. "They are the last lingering scraps of the old time," John Madson wrote in Where the Sky Began: Land of the Tallgrass Prairie, "fragments of original wealth and beauty, cloaked with plants that you may never have seen before and may never see again." He was referring specifically to Kalsow Prairie, which is only a few miles west of Fort Dodge, though I don't remember hearing about it while living there. Like other treasures, I had no idea it was so close to home.


John Price is the author of Man Killed by Pheasant and Other Kinships

Interview with John Price: Part 6

Who are your inspirations among nature writers and writers of place?

Henry David Thoreau, Ed Abbey, and Annie Dillard were some of my earliest influences. Also, Loren Eiseley and Aldo Leopold, both of whom were midwesterners who blended science and ethics and art in ways that are still a revelation to me—I admire writers who seem to live in the boundaries, as they did. Following the floods in 1993, I sought out conversations with contemporary grasslands nonfiction authors committed to living in the region they write about—Linda Hasselstrom, Dan O’Brien, William Least Heat-Moon, and Mary Swander—and those visits became part of my first book, Not Just Any Land: A Personal and Literary Journey into the American Grasslands. Their example helped guide me through an important stage of my life as a writer, when I was just considering the possibility of committing to place. Since becoming a father, I’ve been especially drawn to authors who are writing about nature and animals from within the context of family, work, and community. These include contemporary writers Wendell Berry, Scott Russell Sanders, and Tom Montgomery-Fate but also E. B. White, James Herriot, and Gerald Durrell. In Man Killed by Pheasant, I write from within a similarly personal context, exploring the ways nature has informed everything from the decision to get married to our efforts to have a baby to the ways I memorialize my grandfather.         

Tell us about the tallgrass prairie reader you are editing. And your next book, Daddy Long Legs: The Natural Education of a Father.

I’m very excited about the anthology, which will gather literary nonfictional accounts of the tallgrass prairie, from early exploration narratives to contemporary nature writers. Some of the authors include George Catlin, Walt Whitman, Mary Swander, and Louise Erdrich. It will be the first anthology of its kind, presenting a portrait of how the tallgrass prairie has inspired the human imagination over several centuries. Daddy Long Legs is another nature memoir that continues the story of my life as a parent and about how nature has influenced and enriched that life. It is also about the death of my grandmother and about how nature provided my family with a way to understand and articulate the meaning of that loss—especially my children, who were very close to her.   

Excerpt from "Man Killed by Pheasant" in Man Killed by Pheasant and Other Kinships

So I'm driving east on Highway 30, from our new home in Belle Plaine to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It's a four-lane, and because I'm the eldest child, I'm driving the speed limit, around fifty-six, sixty miles per hour. I'm listening to Jimi Hendrix cry "Mary"—imagining, as usual, that I am Jimi Hendrix—when in the far distance I see some brown blobs hovering across the highway: one, then two. By the way they move, low and slow, I suspect they're young pheasants. As I near the place of their crossing I look over the empty passenger seat and into the grassy ditch to see if I can spot the whole clan. Suddenly, there is a peripheral darkness, the fast shadow of an eclipse, and something explodes against the side of my head in a fury of flapping and scratching and squawking. In an act of extraordinary timing, one of the straggling pheasants has flown in my driver's side window. And being the steel-jawed action hero I am, I scream, scream like a rabbit, and strike at it frantically with my left arm, the car swerving, wings snapping, Hendrix wailing, feathers beating at my face until, at last, I knock the thing back out the window and onto the read. I regain control of the car, if not myself, and pull over, undone.


John Price is the author of Man Killed by Pheasant and Other Kinships

October Gardening Tip

As the frost kills plants, remove them. Annuals should be dug up or pulled out by their roots. Perennials, except for roses, should be cut off an inch or two about ground. Put undiseased plant material in a compost pile, chopping up large pieces. If plant material is diseased, put it on a special, separate pile to prevent disease from spreading.

Excerpt from Gardening in Iowa and Surrounding Areas by author Veronica Lorson Fowler

Interview with John Price: Part 5

What are your favorite natural areas in Iowa and the Midwest?

There are so many, it’s difficult to choose. As a western Iowan, however, I’d have to say the Loess Hills—they are an international treasure. Hitchcock Nature Center, just north of Council Bluffs, has been a very special place for my family, offering hiking trails through loess prairies and spectacular views of the Missouri River Valley. As a boy, one of my favorite places was Dolliver State Park, along the Des Moines River near Fort Dodge. It was an amazing place, full of adventure and beauty, with sandstone cliffs, woodlands, and flower-filled meadows. Outside of Iowa, we’ve enjoyed exploring prairie places in Nebraska, Kansas, and South Dakota. I’d especially recommend the prairies of Wind Cave National Park, in the Black Hills, which I write about in the book. Tourists usually limit their visit to the cave, but it has some of the most spectacular mixed-grass prairies in the region.  

You’re an English professor, not a biology professor, yet you’ve been a key speaker at the Iowa Prairie Network, North American Prairie Conference, and Prairie Preview, among others, and listeners really appreciate your point of view. How have you managed to bridge the communications gap between the worlds of literature and natural history?

One of the things I try to do is infuse scientific facts with lyricism, drama, and humor in order to earn the attention of readers who might not otherwise be interested. When I speak at science events, however, I know they already care. What I often hear about instead are the challenges facing those trying to protect and restore our natural environment—and they are significant. Although that work can be very rewarding, it can also take a personal toll. I want to offer these audiences a little laughter, but I also hope my work inspires them (and all my readers) to revisit the sources of their own love for nature, whether in childhood or some other time in their life. Sometimes we need to re-experience that original love in order to keep going with our current environmental efforts. Also, I stand as a witness that the work of these scientists does matter, not just ecologically but emotionally and spiritually. I am an example of the redemptive power of restored prairies—they have changed my life, and the lives of many others, for the better. 

Excerpt from "Love Mountain" in Man Killed by Pheasant and Other Kinships

"Come down from there, dammit!"

It's our honeymoon and I awaken, as if from a trance, to find myself clinging to the side of a cliff in the Sawtooth wilderness of Idaho. The situation is new to me—being married, clinging to the side of a mountain—and, at the moment, unexpectedly precarious: a surprise visit from a loose pebble or a curious pika will put an end to it all. This explains, perhaps, the insistence in Steph's voice. I can see her, maybe a hundred feet below, standing on one of numerous jagged rocks, shouting, but I ignore her, preoccupied with the withering strength in my feet and fingertips and with the undeniable fact that this is her fault. How many times did I point out that Idaho militia groups are stocked with ex-pat Midwesterners? How many times did I mention, in passing, that the Donners were from Illinois? Countless numbers of my kind have thrown themselves with little forethought into the western wilderness, only to become disoriented and lost and, if they're lucky, airlifted to safety like dew-eyed moose calved on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. If they're unlucky—and many have been—they die, die by the bushel inside hidden cracks of canyons or beneath the smothering blanket of an avalanche, or, like me, on a slippery cliff they can't remember climbing or why. Steph had read about these unlucky people in the paper, she'd witnessed my own erratic behavior in the mountains, and yet, somehow, while photographing wildflowers, she'd allowed me to wander off alone.

If I survive, I'll confront her about this, but I suspect I won't survive. I suspect our relationship is about to end very much the way it began: a man staring across space, falling.


John Price is the author of Man Killed by Pheasant and Other Kinships

The Iowa Lakeside Laboratory

Today we'd like to put a spotlight on the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory, a field station of Iowa's state universities. It has provided summer classes and research opportunities to college students since 1909. As a Regents Resource Center, Lakeside also offers programs in lifelong learning for the people of northwest Iowa. The Friends of Lakeside Lab, its non-profit partner, provides valued support. 

Check out their homepage, with information about our new book The Iowa Lakeside Laboratory: A Century of Discovering the Nature of Nature by Michael J. Lannoo.

Interview with John Price: Part 4

Do you think writing can be influenced by place and, if so, how has the Midwest influenced yours?

I think it does so at many levels. Place provides the specific details and settings from which a work of literature is constructed. I’m also intrigued by the possibility that it can influence style and form. Patricia Hampl observed that the style of Man Killed by Pheasant “replicates the laconic surface and passionate undercurrents” of this region, and I think that’s true of a lot of midwestern writing. Regardless of where we live, place influences the way we look at the world, our patterns of thought and behavior, and I think that inevitably influences the way we put words together. I think the form of this memoir is a lot like the midwestern landscape as I’ve experienced it: segmented, divided into plots, some a little wilder than others, some smaller or larger, each observed from slightly different points of view, but all interrelated. I also think the humor in this book is a product of growing up here. Many midwesterners are raised to be self-deprecating and learn early on how to deal with life’s challenges by using humor.

What role do you see humor playing in nature writing?

I think, in general, writing about the environment lacks humor—and there is good reason for that. When one considers the state of the environment today, there is much to be depressed about. There is also much to be hopeful about, and that’s where humor can help us. The kind of humor I’m talking about doesn’t arise from a sense of superiority, but just the opposite: a sense of humility rooted in the knowledge of our smallness and fallibility. That knowledge can also lead to a sense of helplessness—What can I do that will make any difference?—but humor tends to disarm that fear and open us to the possibility of making positive changes, no matter how small. If we can honestly examine our lives, acknowledge our contradictions and failures, and then laugh at some of them, maybe we’ll treat the world and its creatures with a little more care, affection, and gentleness.  

Excerpt from "Titan" in Man Killed by Pheasant and Other Kinships

I watched as first light slowly carved out the saddle of the Santa Rita Mountains. My family and I had flown into Tucson during the night, during the first Christmas blizzard there in thirty-some years. While Grandma Kathryn drove us south from the airport to their home in Green Valley, I could see nothing of the land itself. Snow—great gobs of it—was falling into the light of the highway lamps, just as it had been when we left Des Moines. Now, in the growing dawn, the snow was resting like fur stoles on the shoulders of the saguaros, though it was already starting to melt. All of winter in a night. The desert was beginning to reassert itself: its dry ascending angles, its spiny, ground-scratching fertility. I still couldn't believe I was there, in the Sonora.

John Price is the author of Man Killed by Pheasant and Other Kinships

Carl Kurtz's Photo Essay: Dickcissels

In preparation for the upcoming second edition of A Practical Guide to Prairie Restoration by Carl Kurtz, we're excited to be sharing Carl's beautiful photos and observations about nature!

Carl Kurtz is a professional writer, teacher, naturalist, and photographer. He and his wife and partner, Linda, live on a 172-acre family farm in central Iowa that is one of the few prairie seed sources in the Midwest.

Dickcissels are grassland birds that evolved in the tallgrass prairie.  If a prairie is available they make use of its superb plant structure.  Singing perches are the tallest plants such as this compass plant.  The sturdy interior cluster of stalks of large old plants can provide for their finely woven nest with its pale blue eggs. They are also fairly common roadside birds.  Listen for their song as you drive down the road.  It sounds like their name repeated over and over.