Description
New Natives: Becoming Indigenous in a Time of Crisis & Transition is a stirring call to reconnect with the land, community, and each other in an era of environmental upheaval. Award-winning poet and activist Thomas Rain Crowe blends memoir, cultural history, and passionate advocacy to explore how we can “reinhabit” our places—living in harmony with nature and drawing on the wisdom of those who have stewarded the Earth for generations.
Set against the lush backdrop of the Southern Appalachian Mountains, Crowe’s essays weave together personal stories, Indigenous perspectives, and urgent reflections on climate change, biodiversity, and sustainable living. He invites readers to imagine a future where diversity—of species, cultures, and communities—is not just preserved but celebrated as essential to survival.
Complemented by Simone Lipscomb’s evocative photography, New Natives is both a love letter to the natural world and a manifesto for a new way of being. From the philosophy of bioregionalism to the everyday beauty of rivers, forests, and wildlife, this book offers practical inspiration for anyone longing to live more consciously and courageously in the place they call home.
For readers of Wendell Berry, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and E.O. Wilson, this is a work that will awaken your sense of belonging—to the land, to your neighbors, and to the greater Earth community. Whether you are an environmentalist, a lover of nature writing, or simply seeking a more rooted life, New Natives offers vision, guidance, and hope.
Praise for New Natives
Thomas Rain Crowe’s poetry and essays in New Natives: Becoming Indigenous in a Time of Crisis & Transition has taken to heart Gary Snyder’s words to him to do “the wild work.” Do it and write it. And live it. Crowe quotes Thoreau: “All good things are wild and free” and shows what that means to him: “It’s not the money, it’s the wilderness that turns me on.” Crowe seems to have a natural and wild built-in facility for the perfect rhyme. The ending of a story about going up a dirt road dug by hand: “From what the hell these eyes have seen: the subtle passing of the green,” lines worthy of Blake or John Clare. His writing takes us back, way back, where we need to go, like Snyder says of it, the wild work, to love work when “work and play are one.”
—Joe Napora,
author of The Walam Olum
Presented in compelling prose and poetry, in which author Thomas Rain Crowe articulates hard-won wisdom regarding how we humans might live humbly in harmony with the natural and cultural history of our given or chosen place on Earth, New Natives serves as a sort of guidebook. Along with inspired images in this book contributed by photographer Simone Lipscomb, New Natives will be of considerable value to readers, as they may find a place in which they will be—feeling whole and free—like new natives.
—Ted Olson,
author of Blue Moon
