Toward Antarctica

by Elizabeth Bradfield

*Selected as a Top 10 Must-Read Book About Antarctica by the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators Poet-naturalist Elizabeth Bradfield’s fourth collection, Toward Antarctica , documents and queries her work as a guide on ships in Antarctica, offering an incisive insider’s vision that challenges traditional tropes of The Last Continent. Inspired by haibun, a stylistic form of Japanese poetry invented by 17th-century poet, Matsuo Bashō to chronicle his journeys in remote Japan, Bradfield uses photographs, compressed prose, and short poems to examine our relationship to remoteness, discovery, expertise, awe, labor, temporary societies, “pure” landscapes, and tourism’s service economy. Antarctica was the focus of Bradfield’s Approaching Ice , written before she had set foot on the continent; now Toward Antarctica furthers her investigation with boots on the ground. A complicated love letter, Toward Antarctica offers a unique view of one of the world’s most iconic wild places.

Genres: Poetry, Nature, Nonfiction, Travel, Photography

160 pages, Paperback

First published May 9, 2019

About the author

Elizabeth Bradfield is the author of Toward Antarctica (Boreal Books/Red Hen, 2019) Once Removed (Persea, 2015), Approaching Ice (Persea, 2008), and Interpretive Work (Arktoi Books/Red Hen Press, 2008). She is also co-editor of two anthologies: Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry (Mountaineers Books, 2023) and Broadsided Press: Fifteen Years of Poetic/Artistic Collaboration, 2005 - 2020 (Provincetown Arts Press, 2022).

Liz is editor of Broadsided (http://www.broadsidedpress.org), a modern incarnation of the traditional broadside. Her poetry been published in such journals as The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, The Sun, and elsewhere.

Bradfield grew up in Tacoma, Washington, has received a Stegner Fellowship, a Bread Loaf Scholarship, the Audre Lorde Prize. She lives on Cape Cod, works as a naturalist, and teaches at Brandeis University.

Reviews

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never read anything quite like this, so s very unique reading experience. Love nature, love reading about Antarctica. Part travelogue, memoir, poetry, with some fantastic photographs. The photos alone are worth my four star rating, they are just gorgeous. Animals, setting, plus unique entries chronicling her journeys.

Intertidal

"brittle star, krill, sap, weed
whats left by ebb or flung
another story beneath/along our floated,
floating stories"

"Rough. Chop on top of swell. Passengers stagger the gangway.
I idle bow in, wait my turn for pickup. Gust off the glacier-
hunch away-slaps my shoulder like a stupid cousin. Water down neck."

Just a few examples, the above on a shore excursion.

Love when authors/poets try new forms, new ideas and execute them well.

ARC from Edelweiss.

[Chris LaTray · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one, especially in combination with Bradfield's previous work, Approaching Ice, hit me hard. I share a fascination with the cold, with ice, and a huge desire to visit those places. I probably never will, but Bradfield's work gets me close. I love her poems, and I particularly love her Bashō-influenced approach to tell her story here via haibun.

Then there's the photographs, which are spectacular. I don't think there is any way that this book is not a triumph, at least to me and what I was hoping for. I only wish it was in hardback, because I have a feeling my softcover edition is going to get beat to hell. That's probably as it should be.

[mcayla]

75/75!

[Ginna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I took my time and savored this one. I was not familiar with haibun- now Bradfield inspires me to seek out more Basho. I appreciated the context surrounding each haiku, and the way the haiku rippled further because of the context. I need to dive back into Approaching Ice. And then read this one again.

[Richard Subber · Rating 2 out of 5]

Toward Antarctica is my first exposure to the puzzling literary form called haibun, commonly defined as a (or, apparently, any) combination of poetry, essay, autobiography, diary entries, prose—particularly short story—and travel journal.
You might ask why there’s no mention of “kitchen sink.”
Haibun, it seems, is a popular format for the genre of travelogue. Bradfield obviously thinks so.
Another format you might think of is: disorganized hodgepodge of descriptive sentences, phrases, and words, in defiance of any editorial instinct, lacking any notable connective passion that would animate the text.
Haibun isn’t my favorite literary flavor.
I’ll take my Shackleton without any sauce, please.

Read more of my book reviews and poems here:
www.richardsubber.com

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started this book last year as I was heading to Antarctica myself. But I didn't get far. Although it is beautiful—beautifully written, beautifully illustrated—I did not have the context to appreciate it fully. In some ways, I still don't, because this book, which consists of short almost–journal entries, is very much about Bradfield's personal experience.

Bradfield is a poet and a naturalist, and Toward Antarctica provides us with snapshots, in both words and images, of several voyages she has made to the southern continent, South Georgia Island, and the Falklands as staff on a tourist ship. In it, she adopts a form originated by the seventeenth-century Japanese poet Bashō known as haibun, which combines prose and haiku. Though "prose" isn't quite accurate, for her style is quite telegraphic, requiring the reader to slow down and savor (or, sometimes, puzzle). Frequently, she also includes a footnote to clarify some historical point or other allusion within her entry. The layout is elegant, as are the (sometimes rather abstract) photographs.

My experience aboard a ship in Antarctica was different from Bradfield's, both because I wasn't staff and because our ship was very small, intimate, and we had a lot of flexibility. So I got the most out of her observations about wildlife and the places that I, too, visited: Port Lockroy, Neko Harbor, Half Moon Island, the Gerlache Strait.

I also appreciated her epilogue, "A Letter Home," in which she asks: "Where do we source our information and how do we scrape down to the truth? How are we going to agree and make a plan to move forward, America, on this one subject in our own crowded, conflicted, contradictory, not-wholly-known land? There are so many subjects about which we are asking these questions."

This book prompted me to pull out my maps of Antarctica and recall our trip with all its glorious landings and Zodiac rides, seeing penguins and seals and whales. Now, perhaps, I should finally get around to curating and organizing the photos I took down there, and posting them. I relish the thought of a return visit, even if it is only via a screen.

Do I recommend this book? It's hard to say. As I mentioned above, I couldn't appreciate it until I'd been to the land she describes myself. Even the sections about South Georgia and the Falklands were a bit of a stretch for me, though I've read about these places and seen photos, so that helped. It is a beautiful book, and a unique take on the travel memoir, but it may in the end be of only limited accessibility. Though I may be wrong!

[Camille Dungy]

So many of us hunger for Antarctica. For its promise of something notably new to our experience. Its promise of something pristine. Though very little is wholly pristine on this planet. Very little is free of our “fantastic, greasy hope.” It seems fitting that in her deep and thoughtful journey to the site of so many voyagers’ ambitions, Elizabeth Bradfield would turn to the form Bashö found useful for his own Narrow Road to the Interior. Bradfield’s gorgeous collection of photographs and poems—part cultural criticism, part journalism, part art portfolio, part memoir, part lyric splendor—could grace either your bedside or coffee table because it is as wonderful to look at as it is to read. A naturalist, poet, and photographer, Bradfield is as keen-eyed about the continent and its surrounding islands as she is about the souls counted present on the ships that take them there. This balance between expansive views and focused clarity make reading Toward Antarctica (Boreal Books) almost as good as sailing there ourselves.

Review published originally with Orion Magazine: https://orionmagazine.org/2021/06/pri...

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

This started out strong and I was really interested in the voice and the subject matter (the author is also a scientist and these poems reads like excerpts from a journal she kept while on the trip to and from Antarctica).

And there’s the problem: most people’s journals are not terribly interesting. The short, almost bullet journal spare sentences (these are mostly poems in prose with a haiku tossed in the middle of some) don’t have a lot of meat on their bones so the lines aren’t as rewarding as a poet with a more luscious vocabulary.

Nothing in here gives me a sense of the vastness, the mysteriousness, the surprising life of the continent. It is terribly quotidian and by midway through I wanted to go home again.

[Kali · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read books about polar exploration since I was a teenager — Scott, Peary, Amundsen, multiple books about the Shackleton expedition, and more recent accounts by Helen Thayer, Gretchen Legler, Sara Wheeler — but never a book like this. A poet’s journey, a naturalist’s journey, a woman’s journey. It’s beautifully written using short poems and haibun, a poetic form invented by Basho for journeys, and the words are accompanied by stunning photographs. A wonderful read and great for gifts! Highly recommended.

[Anne Corrsin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elizabeth Bradfield's new book "Toward Antarctica" brings together her incisive words with the intimate clarity of her photographs. As I read through this volume, I felt pulled into the icy world she is describing. Her poetic voice speaks directly to you, while also showing the wider horizon of the experience.
This volume is beautifully designed with the format balancing image and text in a dynamic way. Bradfield's urgent, clear vision conveys her passion and commitment to the environment she portrays. Highly recommended !

Anne C.

[A. · Rating 2 out of 5]

This didn't do it for me. I was excited that she used Basho's haibun form, but the prose was so abstract that it was difficult to access and I just didn't have the investment level to plough through the abstract and vague parts to get to meanings. Big disappointment for me, to be honest, but I'm sure this works for others.

[Meg Mahoney · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Months imagining myself upon that ocean (worry worry worry worry wind, worry ice, worry stern landings in swell)" p19

"America, how do we care for what is far from us and well as what is near?" p150

[Elizabeth]

The poems and most of the text were hard for me to follow and my comprehension was pretty limited. But the notes sections were awesome and the pictures were amazing.

[Anne Fitzgerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Stunning collection accompanied by exquisite photographs.

[Janette Schafer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unique hybrid book

This book is a hybrid work of mostly poetry blended with naturalism, scientific inquiry, memoir, and photography. It is a beautiful love letter to Antarctica.

[Kelsey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't like nearly as much as her other book about Antarctica. Photos lacked punctum for me.

[Leslie P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved that we are visiting most places cited in this usually-formatted book. Great depictions and photos.