Spiral Jetta - Erin Hogan (University of Chicago)

Erin Hogan hit the road in her Volkswagen Jetta and headed west from Chicago in search of the monuments of American land art: a salty coil of rocks, four hundred stainless steel poles, a gash in a mesa, four concrete tubes, and military sheds filled with cubes. Her journey took her through the states of Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. It also took her through the states of anxiety, drunkenness, disorientation, and heat exhaustion. Spiral Jetta is a chronicle of this journey.

Spiral Jetta is the current free e-book of the month at Chicago Press. There also is an interview with Hogan online.

"Hogan’s pilgrimage, sparsely illustrated, is part well-informed art historical travelogue and part light foray into self-discovery."—Publishers Weekly

Erin Hogan is director of public affairs at the Art Institute of Chicago.

About the University of Chicago Press
The Books Division of the University of Chicago Press has been publishing books for scholars, students, and general readers since 1892. The Books Division has published over eleven thousand books since the Press was founded. It has more than five thousand books in print at the present time.

Erin Hogan: Spiral Jetta
e-book: e-book-of-the-month page
190 pages, 2008
non-fiction, art, travel

editor's note: there is a related review on this book online in the editor's blog, including photo+video links to some of the featured land art, quotes, and a "Spiral Jetty" travel report of an art blogger: "Spiral Jetty & Arches - a road / art trip"

and see what happens - Ursula Vaira (Caitlin)

In her first book of poetry And See What Happens - The Journey Poems, Ursula Vaira captures the rugged and challenging beauty of the West Coast landscape and writes the poetry of 3 transformative journeys in British Columbia's wilderness.

The first, told through a set of linked poems, describe her thirty-day, thousand-mile paddle from Hazelton to Victoria. As a Caucasian civilian, the only woman in the canoe, Vaira bears witness.

"A heck of a wind/ bounces me into the mountains... " - So begins the second poem, the story of a woman's stay in an isolated hunter's cabin in the northern Rockies. The third and final journey in Vaira's new collection is a poem of place, of landscape and of westcoast imagery from a twenty-two-day kayaking journey that rounded Cape Scott and Cape Cook on Vancouver Island.

"These poems are talismans of grace, beauty and healing." - Lorna Crozier

Ursula Vaira grew up in northern BC and taught school in the Arctic and on the northwest coast. Her poems have been published in literary journals and in anthologies. Ursula worked at Oolichan Books for ten years then founded her own publishing house, Leaf Press, in 2001.

About Caitlin Press
Caitlin Press publishes culturally significant books, including fiction, non-fiction (both historical and creative), and poetry. It was established in 1977 by Carolyn Zonailo as a feminist literary press. In the 1980s, Caitlin Press moved from Gabriola Island to Vancouver and expanded its mandate to that of a BC literary press.

Ursula Vaira: and see what happens
poetry
ISBN: 978-1-894759-58-8
112 pages, $ 16.95