Desert Light and Distance
“There’s nothing out there,” my friend said, referring to the great arid reaches of the American West and Southwest. I couldn’t have disagreed more. There’s time and distance and the contours of the Earth that show an incredible variety to the discerning eye. And over it all, there is an almost mesmerizing interplay of shadows and light.
If Catharine Hill Savage Brosman’s new volume of poetry, “Range of Light” (Louisiana State University Press, 2007), is any indication, she would agree wholeheartedly with me. Brosman ’55, a professor emeritus of French at Tulane University who has produced a number of outstanding academic works in her field, has been equally prolific in writing poetry and essays about her travels, particularly through the regions of America where the environment seems to dominate the people who live there.
The full-bodied poems in “Range of Light” vividly and gracefully capture a physical landscape that is humanized by signs of present and past habitation. If those signs often show the impermanence and frailty of humankind, they also show its diversity as well as its tenacity. Most of all, the poems evoke contemplations of eternity and meaning that seem to be crucial elements in surviving and making sense of such long distances, vast spaces and inhospitable conditions.
For those of us who already love the American West and Southwest, “Range of Light” will be a fond return. For others, it might provide an illuminating experience.