JENSEN, Derrick

PERSONAL: Male. Education: Colorado School of Mines, B.S., 1983; Eastern Washington University, M.F.A., 1991.

ADDRESSES: Agent—P.O. Box 428, 85 N. Main St., Ste. 120, White River Junction, VT 05001. E-mail—[email protected]

CAREER: Writer, Teacher, Activist. Teaches writing at universities and at Pelican Bay State Prison, California; Transitions magazine, Associate Editor, 1990-2000; Chicken farmer and Beekeeper.

MEMBER: Railroads and Clearcuts Campaign, Cofounder and member, 1996—; Center for Respect of Life and Environment, member 1997—; Advisory Board of the Native Forest Network, member 1997—; Advisory Board of Del Norte Association for Cultural Awareness, member 2001—.

AWARDS, HONORS: Critics Choice for one of America's Ten Best Nature Books of 1995 for Listening to the Land: Conversations About Nature, Culture, and Eros, 1995.

WRITINGS:

Listening to the Land: Conversations About Nature, Culture, and Eros, Sierra Club Books (San Francisco, CA), 1995.

(with George Draffan and John Osborn) Railroads and Clearcuts: Legacy of Congress's 1864 Northern Pacific Railroad Land Grant, Inland Empire Public Lands Council (Spokane, WA), 1995.

A Language Older than Words, Context Books (New York, NY), 2000.

The Culture of Make Believe, Context Books (New York, NY), 2002.

(with George Draffan) Strangely Like War: The Global Assault on Forests, Chelsea Green (White River Junction, VT), 2003.

Walking on Water: Reading, Writing, and Revolution, Chelsea Green (White River Junction, VT), 2004.

Contributor to periodicals including New York Times Magazine, Audubon, and the Sun.

SIDELIGHTS: Derrick Jensen is a writer, teacher, activist, and modern-day philosopher. Jensen's youth was a contrast of academic success and violent paternal abuse. He knew soon after earning a B.S. degree in mineral engineering and physics from the Colorado School of Mines that his passion was for writing, not engineering. Giving up his brief engineering career, Jensen attempted to become a beekeeper until a combination of bee mortality and his own chronic illness led to a physical breakdown. The lengthy recovery and healing process provided Jensen with time for reflection and study. A 1991 M.F.A. in creative writing from Eastern Washington University helped Jensen to hone his craft, as did a contract to co-author a book titled "Railroads and Clearcuts" in 1995. The following year Jensen began work on the book that brought him major critical acclaim, "A Language Older than Words", which was published in 2000.

Jensen's first published book, Listening to the Land: Conversations About Nature, Culture, and Eros, was a collection of writings he originally published in The Sun. Drawn to topics that are deeply personal to him, Jensen compiled interviews and essays of thirty ecology activist and deep-thinkers to examine the health of the human psyche and the health of the planet. In his introduction to the collection of ecopsychology writings, Jensen claimed that "We are members of the most destructive culture ever to exist." It was Jensen's quest for a rational explanation of this belief that lead him to put together what Donna Seaman of Booklist called "a far-reaching, stimulating collection."

Jensen's second book, written with coauthor George Draffan, was released later the same year. Railroads and Clearcuts: Legacy of Congress's 1864 Northern Pacific Railroad Land Grant exposes a history of misuse of public forestry lands by the big businesses holding the lands in trust and the lack of governmental redress. A Publishers Weekly reviewer considered the authors to be occasionally heavy-handed in making their point yet proclaimed the book "with its historic background, company profiles, analysis of the effects of over cutting and the practice of exporting wood, as well as suggestions for citizen action" to be "a worthy contribution to the continuing debate over use of public lands."

Jensen again explores his personal experience in terms of natural existence in A Language Older than Words. In this highly praised book, Jensen used his personal reality as a child victim of violent sexual abuse and his quest to understand his father's actions to explore how society exploits both people and the environment. "My family is a microcosm of the culture," Jensen wrote. "What is writ large in the destruction of the biosphere was writ small in the destruction of our household." The book is an intense read that resonates both as poetic and brutally honest. In a review for Counterpoise, John Zerzan stated that "Jensen's odyssey is full of the loveliest observations from the heart, self-effacing recollections that are often very funny, and relentless questioning of this bizarre totality we find ourselves living in."

While Jensen examines the relationships between personal and social violence in A Language Older than Words, in The Culture of Make Believe he uses society and human history as a springboard to explore hate and "the root of our culture's destructiveness." Greed, globalization, valuing production over life and the abstract over the particular, Jensen said, are destroying our world. This book, he wrote "is more about racism-and far more broadly hate as it manifests itself in our Western world…. This book is a weapon." Critic Donna Seaman of Booklist agreed, terming the book "courageous, clear-sighted…a frank and unsparing inquiry."

In response to a question put to Jensen by interviewer Anthony Lappe for the Guerrilla News Network, the author explained how he came to write such a powerful book. "It started off as a ten-page introduction to an encyclopedia of hate groups." When Jensen's research led him to the conclusion that "any hatred that's felt long enough and deeply enough no longer feels like hatred, it feels like tradition, or religion, or economics, or the way things are," ten pages easily grew to 700.

Jensen again wrote with George Draffan for "Strangely Like War: The Global Assault on Forests." Itis a passionate expose of the crisis of deforestation facing the world. The authors contend that forests are not renewable assets, that widespread industrial forestry has led to the extinction of species and adversely affects the environment. Ilse Heidmann writing for the Library Journal stated that this book is "written with conviction, fervor, and facts… numerous examples illustrate how timber corporations, supported by the structures of globalization, easily bypass regulations and restrictions as they seek ever higher profits."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Booklist, April 1, 1995, Donna Seaman, review of Listening to the Land: Conversations About Nature, Culture, and Eros, p. 1362; May 1, 2002, Donna Seaman, review of The Culture of Make Believe, p. 1488.

Counterpoise, October, 2000, John Zerzan, review of A Language Older than Words, p. 37-38.

Library Journal, June 15, 2002, Leslie Armour, review of The Culture of Make Believe, p. 69; October 15, 2003, Ilse Heidmann, review of Strangely Like War: The Global Assault on Forests, p. 94.

Pesticides and You, Winter, 2003, Terry Shistar, review of The Culture of Make Believe.

Publishers Weekly, June 5, 1995, review of Railroads and Clearcuts: Legacy of Congress's 1864 Northern Pacific Railroad Land Grant, p. 55; April 10, 2000, review of A Language Older than Words, p. 85; August 28, 2000, Bridget Kinsella, "An Activist Memoir Challenges the World to Listen and Heal," review of A Language Older than Words, p. 25; April 1, 2002, review of The Culture of Make Believe, p. 71; May 6, 2002, Olivia Dugan, "Truths and Atrocities," interview, p. 30; September 22, 2003, review of Strangely Like War: The Global Assault on Forests, p. 95.

Utne Reader, September, 2001, Chris Dodge, review of A Language Older than Words, p. 100.

online

Guerrilla News Network, http://www.guerrillanews.com/media/cointel/doc483.html (October 30, 2003), Anthony Lappe, interview and review of A Language Older than Words.

San Diego Technical Books, http://www.booksmatter.com/ (October 30, 2003), review of Strangely Like War: The Global Assault on Forests.*