THE HOUSE ON IPSWICH MARSH
Exploring the Natural History of New England
William Sargent

"William Sargent, who has also written extensively about the world's environment, instead in "The House on Ipswich Marsh" ventures barely a half-dozen miles from his home to discover "a quest that could last a lifetime."—Boston Globe

A richly layered approach to millions of years of geological and cultural history in an unusual New England biosystem.
In 2003, Bill Sargent bought a big pink house in Ipswich, Massachusetts. His home sits on what is known as the Great Marsh, a fascinating patch of wetland shared by Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Sargent received a grant to study some of the rare and endangered ground-nesting birds that inhabit the public land adjacent to his property. Ipswich Marsh is about these birds, but much else as well.

Organized by the seasons of the year, The House on Ipswich Marsh features Sargent’s trademark interplay of information about the natural world, ecology, and politics. In “Spring,” the reader learns about the geological history of the Marsh; the migration patterns of bobolinks; the courtship flights of woodcocks; ticks and Lyme disease; the mating of horseshoe crabs and the underwater arrival of zooplankton, fish eggs, and moon jellyfish. “Summer” introduces plate tectonics and glaciers; sea level rise and glacial rebound; diving at night among lobsters and stone crabs; a day on Crane’s Beach; and a bike trip on Argilla Road. “Autumn” illuminates fishing; the natural and cultural history of Hog Island; harvest time on Appelton Farm; and a Native American Thanksgiving. “Winter” describes the formation of dunes and sandbars; the mating behavior of seals; coyote hunting deer at night; and a late-winter blizzard in which Sargent spies a red-tailed hawk, waiting, like the author, for the return of spring.

University Press of New England
2005 • 264 pp. 83 illus. 1 map. 6 1/4 x 9 1/4"
Nature / Ecology & Environmental Studies / New England

$24.95 Cloth, 1-58465-465-1

His book is available at The River Gallery on Market Street

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More Books & Media about Ipswich, Massachusetts (continued from right hand column)

Measuring time--by an hourglass by Kitty Crockett Robertson

Life in the shifting dunes: A popular field guide to the natural history of Castle Neck, Ipswich, Massachusetts by Laurence B White

Ipswich, proud settlement in the Province of the Massachusetts-Bay by Charles E Goodhue

The Old Families of Salisbury and Amesbury, Massachusetts : With some related families of Newbury, Haverhill, Ipswich, and Hampton, and of York County, Maine by David W. Hoyt Fine Thread, Lace, and Hosiery in Ipswich and Ipswich Mills and Factories. Salem, Mass.: The Salem Press, 1904. by Fewkes, Jesse Walter, and T. Frank Waters. "Ipswich, Massachusetts During the American Revolution, 1763-1791." Ph.D. diss., UC Riverside, 1972. by Ginsburg, Arlin Ira. Ipswich, Proud Settlement in the Province of the Massachusetts-Bay by Charles E Goodhue A history of the old Argilla road in Ipswich, Massachusetts (Publications of the Ipswich Historical Society by Thomas Franklin Waters A Sketch Of The Life Of John Winthrop The Younger: Founder Of Ipswich, Massachusetts In 1633 A Sketch Of The Life Of John Winthrop The Younger: Founder Of Ipswich, Massachusetts In 1633 by Thomas Franklin Waters

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www.ipswichpoets.org

Ipswich Poetry Group was founded in May 2001 to bring poets together in a supportive workshop environment and to introduce the oral tradition of poetry to the Ipswich community. The poets represent various walks of life, range in age from teens to senior citizens and in experience from beginning to well established poets.  For more information contact Dorothy Laurence at delaurence@comcast.net or 978 356-4240.

A Question of Identity

The drama stews restless in my bed:
a large public room, white walls, stark,
except for a corner with scraps of tar paper,
deep flat infinite black, strewn about,

piled over smoldering shapes
of discarded props. Lining the walls,
an edge of humanity — the actors there,
huddled in conversation.

Someone, unfamiliar, unidentified,
remains in the corner but as I zoom in,
he is indistinguishable from the arcane clutter.
A silhouette reveals him embodied

in two dimension, charred black,
smoldering in his startling reduction.
I am puzzled with vagueness, in the act
of trying to say how it is,

say how he is. I call for help and don’t know why.
And who listens to a voice void of body?
My pocketbook is burned, I say
and my identity has vanished.

No one turns around and I don’t know
how to wait for an answer. Perhaps
some distant galaxy of earthly material
will squander a star to instruct me.

Carol Seitchik’s poems have won awards, appeared in various poetry journals and more recently and locally, in North Shore Living magazine. This past year one of her poems was nominated for a Pushcart award. Carol lives in Beverly, Massachusetts and works as an independent visual arts curator.

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