A North Country Life: A Collection of Essays by Vermont Poet Laureate Sydney Lea
I think there are some things that transcend time and place, race and gender. One of them is nature. On its surface, A life in the northern country it may seem like a book that appeals only to men nostalgic for hunting, fishing, and camping in the New England woods. But for me, a black woman raised in an industrial city in New England, this book also resonated deeply. Sydney Lea, an exquisite storyteller, tells stories that are universally communicated.
A life in the northern country it is a collection of essays grouped according to the four seasons of the year (although winter is not called winter but “cold weather”). Lea recounts how the men and women of the countryside, in times past, moved through the cycles of the year in sync with nature, and generally with each other. Hunting grouse, pheasant, deer. Driving logs downstream first thing in the morning. Each story is infused with determination, a sense of reality.
That same objectivity also permeates reflections on the human cycle. I have recommended to each of my close friends that they read the ten-page chapter, “Now Look.” In this essay, Mattie, one of the North Country women, casually recounts the cycles of her marriage: how that abandoned drunk who now passed out in the shed was once the most handsome and productive man in the North Country. How life had brought him down. How she wished he hadn’t left him, how she was determined to hold onto the cycles of her life … and him. Any woman who has seen her man struggle and fail against failure can relate to this story. “Now Look” is an excellent example of transcendent writing in A life in the northern country– Whether you read this while sitting on the porch of a country cabin or the back deck of a city condo, you get it.
Sydney Lea’s writing is thought-provoking and lyrical. He is a poet, not just any poet. He is the poet laureate of Vermont. For the prosaic reader (pun intended) like me, the reader who reads for themes, relationship, and resonance (that transcendence I spoke of earlier), some of Lea’s poetic flights of introspection can, at times, get in the way. in the path.
Be that as it may, I am very, very glad I read A life in the northern country. I relished reading and I look forward to rereading the essays every season, by season.
When I was a little girl growing up on a railroad floor across the street from a scissors factory, the walls of my room were covered with images of the nature of the forest. Now I have a house in the country. Sydney Lea is wonderfully written A life in the northern country It has reminded me why.