blueprints

92 | robert hass
pre–World War II movie about bush pilots, perhaps with John Wayne. How
are we gonna get that baby across the Strait of Malacca in this weather?
With duct tape and baling wire, if we have to, the big, lumbering pilot
would say.
Amy Thomas said she would call the president of the American Booksellers
Association to see what he could do. At the next meeting a week
later, she reported that he had agreed to arrange to have a poster sent to
every independent bookstore in the country. (In the fall of 1995, that still
included most American bookstores plus the several Borders stores that still
counted themselves as independents.) He had suggested calling the president
of Bantam Books to see if Bantam might, as a public relations gesture,
pay for the printing and the mailings—to bookstores and to libraries and to
museums of natural history, especially junior museums, and the education
programs of state parks. And so Amy had called Bantam Books, and they
had agreed. This was all astonishing to me. It was as if I were looking at
some classical sculpture, an Aphrodite or the Winged Victory, and thought
to myself that it would look a little better if the arm were raised a little, and,
as I had the thought, the arm moved. Meanwhile, Pamela Michael had been
told that International Rivers would give her time to organize the contest
and that they would serve as cosponsors with the poet laureate’s office and
undertake the cost of it. And, she said, wouldn’t it be good to have at least
four age categories and give prizes for art and poetry in each category. And,
if we could, bring the winners to Washington, with their parents and teachers,
for the Watershed days, to have the children read their poetry and display
their art at the library?
it was as if i were looking at some classical sculpture,
an aphrodite or the winged victory, and thought to
myself that it would look a little better if the arm were
raised a little, and, as i had the thought, the arm moved.
So that was how ROW took its shape—as a literature and art contest
designed to take the Watershed literary gathering into classrooms. The more
Pamela and I and Owen Lammers talked about it, the more birds it seemed
to be saving with one stone. In 1995, there was some science being taught