Shake Them Simmons Down

by Janet Lembke, Joe Nutt (Illustrator)

Lovers of the very best nature writing will celebrate this new collection of essays from Janet Lembke. In Shake Them 'Simmons Down, Lembke - author of Dangerous Birds - focuses her keen naturalist's eye on the trees of the American south. Pawpaw, sassafras, sweetgum, loblolly pine, and more become vibrant characters in Lembke's lyrical imagination. She tells of the history of trees and of their role in human lives, and in her own. We join Lembke as she and her fellow pawpawites gather to praise their favorite tree. We hear of persimmon and pecan (Thomas Jefferson's favorite tree), catalpa and tupelo, and are treated to a rich feast of tree lore and tales of tree lovers. The book is leavened by even measures of the practical (recipes) and the artistic (Lembke's poems), all beautifully evoking the singular place trees occupy in human lives. This book, Lembke's most varied and provocative work to date on the natural world, is certain to win her legions of new fans.

Genres: Nonfiction

229 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 1996

About the author

Janet Lembke (2 March 1933 - 3 September 2013), née Janet Nutt, was an American author, essayist, naturalist, translator and scholar. She was born in Cleveland, Ohio during the Great Depression, graduated in 1953 from Middlebury College, Vermont, with a degree in Classics, and her knowledge of the classical Greek and Latin worldview, from Homer to Virgil, informed her life and work. A Certified Virginia Master Gardener, she lived in Virginia and North Carolina, drawing inspiration from both locales. She was recognized for her creative view of natural cycles, agriculture and of animals, both domestic and wild, with whom we share the natural environment. Referred to as an "acclaimed Southern naturalist," she was equally (as The Chicago Tribune described her) a "classicist, a noted Oxford University Press translator of the works of Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus". She received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to translate Virgil's Georgics, having already translated Euripides’ Electra and Hecuba, and Aeschylus’s Persians and Suppliants.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

O, the goodness that comes from trees. Pecan. Pawpaw. Persimmon. Sassafras. Sumac, et cetera. Once upon a time before supermarkets, we depended on these idiosyncratic food sources.

Janet Lembke’s book, “Shake them ‘Simmons Down” is a lovely collection of folklore, old-time recipes, poems and natural history that surrounds these and other trees that have close connections to our hunter-gather and agrarian traditions.

If you love trees, you’ll enjoy this book.

[Keena · Rating 5 out of 5]

absolutely delightful!

[David Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shake Them 'Simmons Down by Janet Lembke (Lyons Press 1996) (582.16). Janet Lembke, good Southerner that she is, has written about the character of the trees that grow near her house and that are typically considered “Southern:” the Osage Orange, the Devil's Walking Stick, and the Paw-Paw, just to name a few. She includes recipes, uses, and the folklore about each species. This is a useful addition to the literature. My rating: 7/10, finished 5/17/2010.