Synopses & Reviews
A beautiful meditation on life in the Great Plains from award-winning author and poet Kathleen Norris.
Kathleen Norris invites readers to experience rich moments of prayer and presence in Dakota, a timeless tribute to a place in the American landscape that is at once desolate and sublime, harsh and forgiving, steeped in history and myth. In thoughtful, discerning prose, she explores how we come to inhabit the world we see, and how that world also inhabits us. Her voice is a steady assurance that we can, and do, chart our spiritual geography wherever we go.
Review
"Deeply moving." The New York Times
Synopsis
"A deeply spiritual, deeply moving book" about life on the Great Plains, by the New York Times-bestselling author of The Cloister Walk (The New York Times Book Review).
Kathleen Norris invites readers to experience rich moments of prayer and presence in Dakota, a timeless tribute to a place in the American landscape that is at once desolate and sublime, harsh and forgiving, steeped in history and myth. In thoughtful, discerning prose, she explores how we come to inhabit the world we see, and how that world also inhabits us. Her voice is a steady assurance that we can, and do, chart our spiritual geography wherever we go.
Synopsis
"A book of stories, a book of prayer, a book to be read meditatively and well," DAKOTA offers a timeless tribute to a place in the American landscape that is at once desolate and sublime, harsh and forgiving, steeped in history and myth. From the award-winning author of AMAZING GRACE, DAKOTA is Kathleen Norris at her most thoughtful, her most discerning, her best. She gives us, once again, a rare "gift of hope and balance, a place to begin" (Chicago Tribune) and assurance that wherever we go, we chart our own spiritual geography.
About the Author
Kathleen Norris is the author of two books of poetry, Falling Off (1971) and The Middle of the World (1981) and has received awards from the Guggenheim and Bush foundations. She lives in Lemmon, South Dakota, with her husband.
Table of Contents
CONTENTS ix Preface 1 The Beautiful Places 13 Weather Report: January 17 14 Deserts 25 Weather Report: February 10 26 Dakota: Or, Gambling, Garbage, and the New Ghost Dance 39 Patagonia 42 A Starfish in Mott 44 Weather Report: March 25 45 Gatsby on the Plains 65 Weather Report: April 14 66 Closed In 69 The Holy Use of Gossip 78 Weather Report: May 19 79 Can You Tell the Truth in a Small Town?
89 Weather Report: June 30 90 Ghosts: A History 102 Evidence of Failure 104 Shadows n Owls: A Message from Jim Sullivan 105 Cana 107 Where I Am124 Star-Time 126 Frontier 135 How I Came to Drink My Grandmothers Piano 136 Status: Or, Should Farmers Read Plato?
142 Weather Report: July 3 143 Rain 145 Sea Change 154 God Is in the Details: Shortgrass 155 Seeing 159 Weather Report: August 9 160 Getting to Hope 177 In the Open 180 Blessing 182 Weather Report: September 3 183 My Monasticism 188 God Is in the Details: Winter Wheat 189 Weather Report: October 2 191 Is It You, Again?
204 Weather Report: November 2 205 Dust 207 Monks at Play 218 Blue 219 Weather Report: December 4 220 Weather Report: December 7 221 Acknowledgments 223 Notes 227 Readers Guide 231 A Conversation with Kathleen Norris