I have a short triptych out today in Hobart!
Essay Published in Hobart
Category: Recent Publication
New poem in MONOLOGGING
I’m a little late in getting this up, but one of my poems was published this fall in the Autumn 2021 issue of monologging.
Ipomoea arborescens
Beyond the highway,
the desert is abloom
with white paper lanterns
or are they apertures
the arid land giving way at last… Read the full poem here!
Words Matter in #SciComm
I had a great time talking with Ashley Piccone from Wyoming Public Radio about the importance of word choice in science communication. Meaning is shaped at multiple levels within the communication process, even in the definitions of single commonly-used words. Being more attentive to word choice helps us think more deeply about how we can prevent misunderstandings, build trust, and meaningfully connect with people.
Listen to the WPR story here and then check out the original article that I co-authored with Bethann Merkle in the Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America.
Publication: Meaning‐Making in Science Communication: A Case for Precision in Word Choice
“To be effective communicators we must have a deeper appreciation for how language and ideas are reshaped in context”
Read the full article on the importance of word choice in science communication in Issue 102 of Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America.
New Publication: What Happened on December 21st, 2019: A Retrospective
New words up today on Essay Daily!
…I had been working on an essay about fragments: fragments of bone, fragments of light, and what the space between these fragments can embody. I’m learning to pay attention to these spaces. A lot can happen in the subtext, in the distance between things, in the space of what is left out, in the time between December 21st and March 16th…
New Publications: Lunar Eclipse off Exit 88 & What Gould’s Magpie Has Stolen
Two poems up now in the latest issue of Minding Nature, a publication from the Center for Humans & Nature.
LUNAR ECLIPSE OFF EXIT 88
Somewhere in Oklahoma,
speeding through scrubby darkness,
we pulled off the highway on Exit 88…
WHAT GOULD’S MAGPIE HAS STOLEN
For its feathers, the prism of light
that broke its blacks into iridescence…
New Publication: This Ground
Up now in the newest issue of Vagabond City:
THIS GROUND
…From the ground
of this Arizonan desert
branches rise as the roots of the sky,
and I wonder now, what is the difference
between a hundred places and no place?…
New Publication: Tidal Desert
Published this week in the lovely Winter issue of Hawk & Whippoorwill
TIDAL DESERT
…Because I could descend
in the chasm of dissolution
between the layers of sandstone
to where life is pressed like petals,
I began to sense the land’ s lungs
beneath the soil, see the hardness of the desert
and understand that here,
life is not to be presumed…
New Publication: Photography
New Publication: Mudsoft, Hardtack
Published today in Issue 6 of Sky Island Journal
MUDSOFT, HARDTACK
My first gasp was over the wide Sheepscot River,
mama panting in the speeding car,
holding me in…
New Publication: Ode to a Rock Dove
Published this month in Entropy‘s “The Birds” series
ODE TO A ROCK DOVE
…And of course it was a pigeon—
rat-of-the-sky,
pest,
dirty dirty bird—
call it
what they will,
you wish the authorities
would restore its name to dove…
…
New Publication: Grafting
Published in the Spring/Summer issue of the Aurorean
GRAFTING
Among high ponderosas in Arizona,
I remember Maine’s white pines—
how after climbing them,
their clear sap drew pieces of that homeland
straight into my hands….
Read the full poem by subscribing/ordering from the Aurorean.
Nell Smith 