Where Water Meets The Rock

In her fourth collection of poetry, Where Water Meets the Rock, Lindsey Martin-Bowen explores loss and recuperation in three sections. “Erosion,” the book’s elegiac opening sequence, laments a trinity of tragic Greek personas: Pasiphaë, Psyche, and Antigone. The middle section, “Frenzies,” a series of zany poems, emulates the ensuing topsy-turvy world that follows deep loss. And finally, “On the Shore” completes the triad, concluding that by re-seeing and re-building life, one can heal the psyche and the spirit. Once again, through the use of her recurring sea-rock metaphor, Martin-Bowen has employed a poetic technique that effectively maintains both a visual and auditory descriptive style, which, according to New Letters editor Robert Stewart, is defined by her “refreshing reliance on imagery and understatement.”

IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award GOLD Winner in Autobiography & Memoir A remarkable story of love, loss, and hope Author Tyra Manning learned that her husband had been killed in the Vietnam War from her psychiatrist at the Menninger Clinic, where she had been hospitalized for clinical depression. After years of battling addiction and depression, and coping with the tragic loss of her father at a very early age, Tyra's worst fear had come true. Larry had been shot down over the Laotian jungle while flying a top-secret mission, just two weeks before their daughter’s second birthday. In this beautifully written, poignant memoir, Tyra Manning recounts how she was able to persevere in the face of devastating loss. With courage, love, and determination, she overcame her grief and fulfilled promises she made to Larry before he left for Vietnam. She ultimately earned a doctorate of education from the University of Kansas and became one of the nation’s top school superintendents. When Tyra received a call from the air force in 2006, she was able to keep one last promise to Larry. His remains had finally been excavated after thirty-five years, and she was able to honor his wish to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Where the Water Meets the Sand explores themes of loss, depression, addiction, courage, and love and offers hope to individuals and families who have also dealt with the loss of someone close to them.

How is the future world energy demand to be met? The rates of use of the fossil fuels — coal, oil and natural gas — are increasing all over the world. The remaining stocks are finite and are not renewable. This book considers the various options of renewable energy, including water energy, wind energy and biomass, solar thermal and solar photovoltaic energy. And should the nuclear option remain open? The work also examines the environmental implications and economic viability of all fossil and renewable sources, introduces more distant future options of geothermal energy and nuclear fusion, and discusses a near-future energy strategy.

Geoecology is a fruitful interdisciplinary field, relating rocks to soils to plant and animal communities and studying the interactions between them. Modern geoecology especially concentrates on showing how geology and soils affect the structure, composition, and distribution of plant communities in a certain research area. This book applies the principles of geoecology to Western North America, and to a specific kind of rock, the fascinating serpentine belts that run along the continental margins of the West Coast from Alaska to Baja. The authors come from different disciplines: Alexander is a soil scientist, Coleman a geologist, Harrison a biological researcher, and Keeler-Wolfe a vegetation ecologist. It begins with an overview of the geology of this rock and this region, covering mineralogy, petrology, and stratigraphy of West Coast serpentine. It will continue with serpentine soils and their development and distribution, and serpentine effects on plants and vegetation and animals. The serpentine geoecology of the different regions of Western North America, concentrating on California, will conclude the study. So, this academic book should appeal to plant ecologists, soil scientists, researchers in geoecology, and students in advanced courses in soil science.