This week's Poetry Friday reader is KNAU Morning Edition host, Aaron Granillo. After 5 years with the station, he is moving back to his hometown of Seattle. Aaron will be sorely missed by his colleagues, but we wish him well in his new adventures. Here, he reads an excerpt from Edward Abbey's 'Desert Solitaire'; a farewell to the mountains and rivers of the Colorado Plateau.
I fell in love with Flagstaff when I first came. I mean, I just love the greenery, and I was living in Phoenix at the time, so it was nice to escape up into the mountains and into the greenery. And the vibe also reminded me a lot of my hometown, Seattle, too.
It was pretty early on when I started here that our colleague, Ryan Heinsius, one of the reporters here, said if you live here, required reading is Edward Abbey’s ‘Monkey Wrench Gang’. That was one of the first books I read when I first got here, and I had never read any Edward Abbey before. I fell in love with his writing. I just love his sarcasm; he’s kind of this surly guy you can tell in his writing, and the story was captivating, and just the imagery that Abbey captured in ‘The Monkey Wrench Gang’.
I remember him talking about the canopy of the Coconino, and the Flagstaff Fuzz…that was one of the lines that I remember. So, Abbey’s writing I just really enjoyed. You know, in broadcast writing we’re taught to write in very simple, short, quick, concise sentences. You know, one thought per sentence. Edward Abbey does not do that. He often goes off on these long, very detailed descriptions of scenes, and canyons, and rivers.
There are many times in the morning during a natural break during Morning Edition, I’ll just step right outside the studio here, and I’ll just look at the San Francisco Peaks, and just take it all in, and just realize how beautiful it is. I mean, one of my images I think I’ll always remember – it’s not one specific time, but it’s after a snow storm – when the clouds clear, and you can see the Peaks, just a fresh coat of powder on there. That’s just a thing of beauty, and I’ll always remember that.
So, I’ll be reading an excerpt from Edward Abbey’s ‘Desert Solitaire’. This section of the book has beautiful imagery and kind of a farewell vibe to it, as well, saying, you know, ‘good luck on this adventure, take new challenges, take on new adventures, and just enjoy the journey as you move on.
“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs,
where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you -- beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.”
? Edward Abbey
Poetry Friday is produced by KNAU's Gillian Ferris. If you have an idea for a segment, drop her an email at gillian.ferris@nau.edu.
