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On Bob Arnold

Jim Koller

The New England literary tradition includes the land. Maybe Thoreau started that. But it's a tradition kept up largely by gentlemen, walkers and sitters, who, though they are quite often acute in the observations they do make, can record nothing of the actual give and take with the land because for them there is none.

The hills a man works on get into his body rhythms, come out in his writing. The birds and animals that he notes while working are not an end unto themselves, but are rather integral parts of his days. When he builds with stone or clears away brush or drops trees he takes the place he lives into the flow of his life in a way that transcends any mere passage through that land. He knows his smashed fingers, his pulled muscles--the messages his brain receives are heightened.

Bob Arnold's literary tradition precedes New England. He writes out of his work and his life, which are totally intertwined with the land. His actual physical surroundings are more apparent to him than to most writing about the land they live on. Don't content yourself with reading him; get to know him.

Jim Koller
(originally on back jacket of Arnold's WHERE RIVERS MEET)

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