ABSTRACT
Modern poets, such as Woody Guthrie, have lauded the achievements of the newest world wonders-the dams of the American West. This myth-making is central to the success of the dams and the building of an ideology regarding nature. But modern poets, whose works form a thread throughout this book, have not recognized what Samuel Taylor Coleridge alludes to in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Coleridge’s thirsty sailor is ironically surrounded by undrinkable salt water. This eighteenth-century poem may soon have some contemporary relevance in the American West. As demand for water increases, dams are silting up and supply is dwindling. Agribusiness intensively irrigates mono-crop fields, producing mineral-rich run-off that makes rivers saltier than seawater. Meanwhile, more and more people move to Western states, and federal policy has shifted, curtailing the state’s ability to respond to a looming water crisis.
