“Down through the midst, the young Tuolumne was seen pouring from its crystal fountains, now resting in glassy pools as if changing back again into ice, now leaping in white cascades as if turning to snow; gliding right and left between granite bosses, then sweeping on through the smooth, meadowy levels of the valley, swaying pensively from side to side with calm, stately gestures past dipping willows and sedges, and around groves of arrowy pine; and throughout its whole eventful course, whether flowing fast or slow, singing loud or low, ever filling the landscape with spiritual animation, and manifesting the grandeur of its sources in every movement and tone.”
Muir, John. The Writings of John Muir: Sierra Edition. Vol. I. The Mountains of California. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917. p. 57.
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Internet Archive
“We don’t have a name for God.
But the Word still holds.
Will we row across a rubbery sea
Or bob in the sky
Vomiting, singing, falling over
Losing our voices, our wits, our hearing?”
Howe, Fanny. “No Beginning.” Love and I. Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press, 2019. p. 18.
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Gray Wolf Press
“Language, no doubt, cannot be as natural as the blowing of winds or the singing of birds. An interesting thought here, however, is that poetics in both Eastern and Western cultures often likes to compare poetry to winds and bird songs.”
Yip, Wai-lim. Diffusion of Distances: Dialogues Between Chinese and Western Poetics. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993. p. 80.
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University of California Press
“yes, black lives do matter, all life matters every day light rises
with the sun, when we welcome the moon, shadows
wavering like wind-breath singing through leaves of trees swelling
with symphonies, voices, beautiful, powerful as choruses of blues”
Troupe, Quincy. “A Dirge for Michael Brown, Tamir Rice & Trayvon Martin.” Seduction: New Poems, 2013-2018. Evanston, IL: TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press, 2019. p. 31.
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Northwestern University Press
“…Until it is a steady howl,
& even the troubadour can no longer hear his word.
He cannot hear himself singing refrain, refrain. . . .
But it is somewhere in the mind.”
Doller, Ben. “Manna.” Radio, Radio: Poems. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001. p. 29.
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“It is very pleasant to walk in the woods singing together and telling joke for joke but sooner or later you will find yourself alone and a bear’s cold muzzle nudging you
then do not tell your friend that he was false”
Reznikoff, Charles, edited by Seamus Cooney. “Fable.” The Poems of Charles Reznikoff: 1918-1975. Boston: David R. Godine, 2005. p. 243.
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WorldCat
“It breaks taboo, it verges on transgression, it teaches humility. Going out—fasting— singing alone—talking across the species boundaries—praying— giving thanks—coming back.”
Snyder, Gary. The Practice of the Wild. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1990. pp. 179-80.
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BeWild ReWild
“A ways up the slope is a shade-shelter with a handgame in progress, the constant rhythm of the drumming on the logs, and the singing rising and falling.”
Snyder, Gary. The Practice of the Wild. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1990. p. 172.
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BeWild ReWild
“One time in Alaska a young woman asked me, "’f we have made such good use of animals, eating them, singing about them, drawing them, riding them, and dreaming about them, what do they get back from us?’”
Snyder, Gary. "Ecology, Literature and the New World Disorder." Irish Pages 2, no. 2 (2004): 29. Accessed May 31, 2021.
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JSTOR
“Therefore one exposes oneself to grave misunderstandings if, in explaining rites, he believes that each gesture has a precise object and a definite reason for its existence. There are some which serve nothing; they merely answer the need felt by worshippers for action, motion, gesticulation. They are to be seen jumping, whirling, dancing, crying and singing, though it may not always be possible to give a meaning to all this agitation.”
Durkheim, Emile. “On Ritual and Theater.” In Symposium of the Whole: A Range of Discourse toward an Ethnopoetics, edited by Jerome and Diane Rothenberg, 18. Berkeley; Los Angeles; London: University of California Press, 1983.
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University of California Press
“Plant growth goes on before our eyes, and every tree in the woods, and every bush and flower is seen as a hive of restless industry. The deeps of the sky are mottled with singing wings of every tone and color; clouds of brilliant chrysididae dancing and swirling in exquisite rhythm, golden-barred vespidae, dragon-flies, butterflies, grating cicadas, and jolly, rattling grass hoppers, fairly enameling the light.”
Muir, John. The Writings of John Muir: Sierra Edition. Vol. II. The Mountains of California. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917. p. 106.
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Internet Archive
“Every tree during the progress of gentle storms is loaded with fairy bloom at the coldest and darkest time of year, bending the branches, and hushing every singing needle. But as soon as the storm is over, and the sun shines, the snow at once begins to shift and settle and fall from the branches in miniature avalanches, and the white forest soon becomes green again.”
Muir, John. The Writings of John Muir: Sierra Edition. Vol. I. The Mountains of California. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917. p. 43.
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Internet Archive
“Some lean back in majestic repose; others, absolutely sheer, or nearly so, for thousands of feet, advance their brows in thoughtful attitudes beyond their companions, giving welcome to storms and calms alike, seemingly conscious yet heedless of everything going on about them, awful in stern majesty, types of permanence, yet associated with beauty of the frailest and most fleeting forms; their feet set in pine groves and gay emerald meadows, their brows in the sky; bathed in light, bathed in floods of singing water, while snow-clouds, avalanches, and the winds shine and surge and wreathe about them as the years go by, as if into these mountain mansions Nature had taken pains to gather her choicest treasures to draw her lovers into close and confiding communion with her.”
Muir, John. The Writings of John Muir: Sierra Edition. Vol. I. The Mountains of California. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917. p. 7-8.
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Internet Archive
“People advance, banging and whistling.
10
Women take off blouses, wave them over head like
hankies, each singing own rock-n-roll tune and twisting
dreamy-like.”
Kaprow, Allan. “Household.” Some Recent Happenings. New York, NY: Great Bear Pamphlets, 1966. p. 10.
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UbuWeb
“When the mill women in Lowell, Massachusetts, went out on strike in 1836, they marched through the town, singing:
Oh, I cannot be a slave,
I will not be a slave.
Oh, I’m so fond of liberty,
I will not be a slave.”
Davis, Angela Y. Women, Race and Class. London: Penguin Books, 2019. p. 33.
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