The snarl around our dory

"J. Edward Chamberlin takes the title for his 2009 Pratt lecture from E. J. Pratt's poem "The Fog." Pratt writes of the fog, "It drew the song from our throats"; and the poem draws from Chamberlin a remarkable meditation on how islands inhabit our imagination and how island traditions have shaped cultures, have given us stories and songs that sustain us. With his typically wide reach, Chamberlin gathers a host of writers, thinkers, singers, explorers and rebels to inform this lecture: from Franklin Russell to Wallace Stevens, from Thomas Hardy to Jacob Le Maire, from Emily Dickinson to Ron Hynes, from William Wordsworth to Louis Riel. The result is an essay of remarkable breadth and generosity that probes the "covenant in wonder" which is the essence of Story"--Pub. website.