"A Weed by Any Other Name": Response 2

I enjoy spending time outdoors. Like I’ve said before I grew up that way. Evan as a young kid, I spent a lot of time hiking the woods behind a family friends’ farmhouse in Cranesville, Pa, southwest of Erie. A creek lies about a half mile or so from the house and my friend Bob and I would walk it for hours. Even today my wife and I have an attic full of camping equipment that we use occasionally, though less often than we’d like. Both of us work full time, take classes and we have a two year old daughter (she keeps us busier than the other two things combined). Still, just a few weeks ago we pulled out the tent, sleeping bags, lantern, camper pie irons and a trunk full of outdoor gear and headed up to Pymatuning for a long weekend. My wife and I agree that it’s important for us to expose our daughter to the outdoors. It’s good for the soul.

Now having said all this, I have never known, and really still don’t know a thing about weeds. Well, I do know this: poison ivy is incredibly itchy. In fact, as I write this I am rubbing away at a rash on the bottom of my right arm. Apparently we have a patch of it somewhere in our lawn and I’ve yet to identify exactly where, despite having a pretty good idea what it looks like. My wife had a severe case of it a couple years ago, right after she had the baby. It was so bad that she had to stop breast feeding. The point is that our lawn exists really just to be cut. The whole thing is primarily just a chore for us. We’ve tried planting flowers but neither of us are green thumbs (or forefingers, pinkies, toes…). In fact, knowing that there’s poison ivy out there just deters us even more from doing anything creative in our yard. And reading Nancy Gift’s book, while very interesting (I’ll get into what I like about it in a second) is almost a manifesto of my enemies. I know she’s not a poison ivy advocate; she even used an herbicide to rid her own yard of it. But personally, I think anything that forces me to work outside when I’d rather be enjoying it is not my friend. If I apply the definition of weeds mentioned in her book (“a plant out of place”) to my lawn, then the whole thing is just one big weed. And I have to admit, I’m probably a lot like many of the students she describes – weeds, to me, are boring.

That said, I rather enjoyed “A Weed by Any Other Name.” First of all, she writes in an accessible manner; that is to say she doesn’t over-burden her readers with a book full of scientific terms. She includes the scientific names of plants for the curious, but she never over-does it. She also writes with a conversational tone that is enjoyable to read. It’s as though she’s writing a book for her family and friends and not for an audience of botanists. More than anything, it’s a subject that I’ve never actually gotten in to and she presents it in a manner that is relatable. She includes a good amount of personal and family-oriented anecdotes, as though she’s writing purposefully from the part of her that is mother, daughter (and daughter-in-law), wife and neighbor. It’s the kind of book that makes you want to call her Nancy instead of Dr. or Ms. Gift.

Another thing I enjoyed about the book is the linear narrative. In fact, it simply follows the seasons, the number one attribute mentioned in our handout “Characteristics of the Literary Nature Journal/Memoir.” And there are a couple of quotes that I found particularly interesting: the idea that weeds are “a pioneer species” or “canaries of our mines.” I also found myself agreeing with her stance on dandy lions. I happen to rather like them, always have. They’re like miniature sunflowers. I could never quite figure out why people want to get rid of them so bad. I guess, according to Gift, their going to seed so fast makes them a nuisance to most avid lawn-keepers. Why not cut them after that, I say.

In a final note, I found one particular phrase quite interesting: she defends hawkweed, and even grows it tall in her own yard. She declares, “Hawkweed won’t take over the world,” which inspired me to begin a new poem, one that envisions, of course, hawkweed taking over the world. I’m not sure exactly where it will go, but I have the feeling that hawkweed would be smart to ally itself with poison ivy and maybe even dandy lions– some kind of axis of evil, you know, in a green/eco-friendly sort of way.