Tag: Rivers

River a Mile Deep

River a Mile Deep (Photo: Michael Shapiro)

Michael Shapiro rafts down the Colorado in the wake of Captain John Wesley Powell

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River a Mile Deep: Three Videos

Videos from Michael Shapiro's 24-day rafting trip down the Colorado River

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River a Mile Deep: Five Great Photos

Images from Michael Shapiro's 24-day rafting trip down the Colorado River

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Tracking Twain and the Mississippi

Laura Barton followed the river through 10 states to better know Twain. Her story about the journey also touches on the music and other literature of the river. It’s a lovely piece.

I kept in mind a line from “Old Glory”, Jonathan Raban’s account of his own journey down the river: “It is called the Mississippi, but it is more an imaginary river than a real one.”

It had been shaped in my own imagination by a confederacy of literature and song lyrics. I pictured it as described by Twain, or Eudora Welty, or William Faulkner, who saw “alluvial swamps threaded by black, almost motionless bayous and impenetrable with cane and buckvine and cypress and ash and oak and gum.” I imagined it as it was conjured up by Paul Robeson in “Ol’ Man River”, or in the songs of Johnny Cash or Charlie Patton, a mighty force capable of carrying away the one you loved, of breaking levees and washing the lowlands of Greenville and Leland and Rosedale, and I saw the delta through Paul Simon’s eyes, “shining like the national guitar”.

Side note: The more time goes by, the more I appreciate Paul Simon’s “Graceland” for its power to evoke the river and the region.


The Roads Home

The Roads Home Photo by Nicholas_T via Flickr (Creative Commons)

On a bi-coastal life amid the bridges of the Delaware River

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Face-Off on the Congo

Face-Off on the Congo REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly

Jeffrey Tayler was cooking lunch along the Congo River when armed men approached, making demands. Enter the Big Man.

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The Water Is Wide

Bronwen Dickey considers Tim Butcher's "Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart," which takes readers deep into the Congo

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‘Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman’s Skiff’

Rosemary Mahoney's new book doesn't just chronicle her unlikely journey down Egypt's great river. Reviewer Julia Ross finds it also deftly explores the uncertain waters that split genders and cultures.

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