Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place (Terry Tempest Williams)
 
 

READING QUESTIONS

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First Set for 2nd Week of Classes (pp ix-65):
 

1) What do you think is the meaning of the first sentence of Mary Oliver's Poem?

2) What happens to the burrowing owls, why does it happen and what is Williams' reaction?

3) What is the connection between The Bear River Migratory Natural Refuge and Terry Tempest Williams' family and personal life?

4) What does Williams mean when she says the Great Salt Lake is cyclic?

5) Why does Williams' mother choose to take a rafting trip before seeing the doctor? Is this a good decision? Why or why not?

6) Which solution to the flooding of the refuge do you prefer and why?

7) What does Williams say about our relationship with cancer?

Second Set for 3rd Week of Classes (pp. 65-174)

1)      Each of the chapters in Refuge is named after a bird.  Which bird particularly struck you from this list and why?

2)      What leads to the success and then the downfall of the Brigham City Cooperative?  How is this similar to a bird colony?

3)      How does Williams’s mother adapt in these pages to her cancer?

4)      Comment on this statement: “Because we have forgotten our kinship with the land…our kinship with each other has become pale” (137).

5)      What do you think about Long Billed Curlews?

6)      Why does Williams pray to the birds?  Do you think it makes any difference? Why or why not?

7)      What does the Great Salt Lake teach Williams about death?

Third Set for 4th Week of Classes (pp 174-290):

1)  List some of the changes Williams' mother goes through as she dies of cancer.

2)  What does Williams mean by the "Motherbody" (p 240)?  Do you agree with her thoughts on the matter?

3)  What is the West Desert Pumping Project?  Does it work?

4)  What does Williams suggest when she quotes Auden on p 273 ("Our dreams of safety must disappear")?

5)  Discuss briefly the significance of "the clan of one breasted women."  Why do they demonstrate and what does it accomplish?

6)  How does Williams mourn her mother's death?  What does her mourning have to do with the earth?

7)  Discuss at least one cultural attitude about death outside of her own roots that Williams encounters in the reading.
 

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