Bunch Grass by Robert Sund (review)

320 Western American Literature should have the same rights as men, and that children are entitled to some rights and cannot be regarded as the freely disposable property of their parents. In each case, the change involved a change in perception, by the grantors, of the nature of those receiving the rights. A system for recognizing appropriate guardians for specific natural objects is also a part of Stone’s proposal. Under the guardian concept, he even has provision for the establishment of trust funds, into which damage claims may be paid. These funds then would be available to restore the damaged object or system and, interestingly, to meet any liabilities incurred by the object. On this point he reverses the situation and supposes the possibility that the object or system might damage the rights of others. Rivers flood, forests burn, and so on. As entities holding rights, rivers and forests may then also have restrictions and liabilities, as well. These few sample points can hardly give either the depth or scope of Professor Stone’s essay. They only illustrate the type of issue with which he deals. He ranges across the whole history of western civilization and draws not only on the law but also on social theory and literature for his illustra­ tions and his proofs. At the same time he writes clearly, persuasively, with charm and an appealingly measured and restrained enthusiasm. One wishes that more of the contemporary discourse on environmental questions could attain these qualities. As I said at the outset, this is an important book. It is brief, well written, free of legalistic jargon. It should be read and considered by everyone interested in environmental questions, or in the continued growth and development of our humanity and the humaneness of our legal and social systems. PAUL T. BRYANT, Colorado State University Bunch Grass. By Robert Sund. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969. Unpaged, $5.95 cloth, $3.95 paper.) It is immediately apparent that Mr. Sund likes people: after dedicating his book to Theodore Roethke, he acknowledges 237 persons, in addition to several families and a Fund. His first poem, however, is about telephone poles, “standing across the country like people / saying the same things to one another over and over.” One suspects a pathetic fallacy, then realizes that people, not poles, talk through telephone wires. The second poem (there are no titles, only numbers) assures the reader of Sund’s control of his material as he describes a meadowlark that Reviews 321 “tries to remember / but can recall / only part of a song he must have once / known fully, / and he sings again.” The people in the poems are working men whom Sund knew and worked with, or “women who marry into wheat,” who “look out kitchen windows / seeing / nothing but wheat.” Occasionally the author shifts from poetry to a few pages of prose. Part One concludes with poems about wheat fields and elevators and the business of agriculture. Part Two again describes wheat, land, trucks, elevators, and flies. The poems maintain their integrity, although they may not always hold the reader’s avid interest. Number 26 picks up the reader with the description of “a regular Wallowa” — a fitting prelude to Number 27, which portrays Sund’s reaction to the five o’clock news on the radio, announcing that “ ‘Theodore Roethke, Pulitzer Prize winner and one of America’s great poets, died today’” : Cursing, picking stones up, and flinging them through the air, I’ve finally stopped. Later, he can not find the last stone again: Where it lies, it lies with stone’s capacity, and with that much eloquence. The scene of the poems is the Northwest, in particular the State of Washington, where Roethke lived and taught during his last years. Bunch Grass is a chronicle of that country and its people: It’s surprising how many people are laughing, once you get away from universities and stop reading newspapers. In a prose section Sund indicates what the people laugh at, quoting a rancher who talks about raising cattle on poor ground: “ ‘Why, up there, if she’s gonna get any feed at all, a cow’s gotta have a mouth...