Soundscapes

In this episode, authors Kerri Schlottman and Caroline Tracey talk about salt lakes, ecological collapse, empathy, environmental justice, and storytelling. Caroline Tracey’s debut, Salt Lakes: An Unnatural History , publis hed by W.W. Norton in March 2026, has received extraordinary praise, including a review in The New York Times Book Review noting its “visceral clarity and geologic intimacy.” He...

In this episode, Tamara Dean talks with Tara Lohan , longtime environmental journalist and author of Undammed: Freeing Rivers and Bringing Communities to Lif e , published by Island Press in 2025. Undammed describes how we've attempted to control the path and flow of nearly every major river in the U.S. It reveals the consequences for the integrity of animal and plant life as well as soil, water,...

In this episode, Kareem James Abu-Zeid , translator of the poems of Najwan Darwish in the new book from Yale University Press, No One Will Know You Tomorrow , talks with Terrain.org reviews editor Renata Golden . Najwan Darwish has been described as one of the foremost Arabic language poets. In spare lyric verse, he testifies to the brutal and intimate traumas of war, the anguished fatigue of waki...

In this episode, host Tamara Dean talks with Valerie Trouet , Gretel Boswijk , and Malcolm Hughes , dendrochronologists whose stories appear in a new book, In the Circle of Ancient Trees . They describe what we can learn from earth's ancient beings; share secrets that tree rings reveal about climate, culture, and history; and indicate how such information could help us plan for future climate resi...

Tamara Dean hosts the relaunch of the Terrain.org Podcast with an episode titled "The Gift of Animals," after the new poetry anthology edited by Alison Hawthorne Deming and published by Storey Publishing: The Gift of Animals: Poems of Love, Loss, and Connection . In this episode, Tamara speaks with The Gift of Animals editor and contributors Nickole Brown , Jose Hernandez Diaz , and Camille T. Dun...

In this rich and reflective conversation, Renata Golden speaks with essayist Tamara Dean about her book Shelter and Storm: At Home in the Driftless  and her decades of life in Wisconsin’s Driftless region—a landscape uniquely spared by glaciers, leaving behind steep bluffs, spring-fed streams, and hidden histories. Dean explores how engaging with the land can be both a political act and a personal...

In Episode 9 of Soundscapes , we listen in on a conversation between poet and essayist Ross Gay and Terrain.org poetry editor Derek Sheffield. As Ross Gay’s biography points out: “Ross Gay is interested in joy. Ross Gay wants to understand joy. Ross Gay is curious about joy.” Ross gay, it turns out, is curious and interested in just about everything, but humble about his ability to understand it....

What is staying power, and how can we cultivate it? This episode Terrain.org -published poetry as well as a short story set to music that explore the staying power of words and experiences. In conversation with Alan Sincic, we learn about the relationship of silence to word music and how subverting expectations can be a source of wonder that lasts for decades. Poetry and fiction included in this e...

Apparently there’s nothing like trying to paddle a gravely ill child out of a swampy wilderness to remind us that death, in fact, is the ultimate wildness. But what does that mean for our lives? This episode of Soundscapes gives voice to Terrain.org contributors Janisse Ray, Robert Morgan, and Kim Parko as we explore the ability of the written word to engage with big questions. Listen to Robert Mo...

Have you ever held a heart in your hand, or wondered how that might feel? Erin Block’s rendition of just what that’s like starts off this episode of Soundscapes , in which Terrain.org artists explore what it means to be more than alone. Each individual, embedded in complex systems both ecological and social, experiences this differently; poems from Ever Jones and Michael Wasson create a kaleidosco...

In the fifth episode of Soundscapes , we present Love Across Time . In this episode, a lively collection of Terrain.org artists consider love: love for each other, love for places, and love for the hard work of creating the world as it could be. After Sandra Steingraber and Taylor Brorby delve into these questions in a conversation held atop Rachel Caron’s beloved Hawk Mountain, Pepper Trail and K...

In this episode of Soundscapes , we explore division and hope from perspectives both human and non. What does it mean to be a citizen? Lee Herrick, editorial board member at Terrain.org , sits down with Soundscapes to share his Letter to America exploring just that. Then, poet Jocelyn Casey Whiteman’s work takes us in an expected direction. We hope you enjoy the episode.  

In our third episode of Soundscapes , we present Sustenance , in which Miranda Perrone interviews essayist Elizabeth Dodd, who reads her essay “Provenance,” originally published in Terrain.org . The podcast ends with a reading of Nathaniel Perry’s poem “Country Gospel,” which brings another kind of sustenance. It is read by the poet and also originally appeared in Terrain.org . Read this and two o...

Recently, Terrain.org co-hosted Conservation in Verse: Authors, Artists, and Activists on Protecting the Landscapes We Love with Friends of the Columbia Gorge . We hope you’ll enjoy listening to poets Kim Stafford and Jane Hirshfield, as well as hearing a panel discussion including artist Ka’ila Farrell-Smith and Friends of Columbia Gorge executive director Kevin Gorman. Additionally, listen to ei...

Welcome to the inaugural episode of Soundscapes , where host Miranda Perrone talks to Kathleen Dean Moore about her involvement in the Permanent People’s Tribunal for Human Rights trial of fracking. While delving into the global impacts of fracking and climate change, Kathleen’s unique eloquence and clarity suggest that our problems do have solutions. We hope you appreciate her perspective as much...