Alison Townsend On The Spirit Of Place

On this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Cole Erickson interviews author Alison Townsend.  Alison is an award-winning author of two poetry collections, The Blue Dress & Persephone in America, and a volume of prose, The Persistence of Rivers. She is also a professor emerita of English at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.She joined us in the studio to discuss her latest book of memoir-in-essays titled The Green Hour: A Natural History of Home, published by the University of Wisconsin Press in 2022. The Green Hour can be described as a collection of sparkling lyrical prose that moves effortlessly through time like a red-winged blackbird. Inspired by five beloved settings—eastern Pennsylvania, Vermont, California, western Oregon, and the spot atop the Wisconsin hill where she now resides—Townsend considers the role that Place plays in shaping the self. Through her attentiveness to nature, she reveals the ways that a fresh perspective or new experience in any environment can incite wonder, build unexpected connections, and provide solace and salvation.