Marilyn Hoegemeyer is standing in 20 acres of never-plowed prairie land, part of her great-grandfather's 1870 homestead in northeastern Nebraska. This book is a collection of her memories growing up in the 1940s and 1950s on the family's nearby corn-breeding farm and attending a one-room country school. She still loves the sweet smell of prairie hay.

Gerard A. Geiger's second book of poetry Listening to the Corn continues his chronological life work in poetry and offers his unique poetic view of the world in which we live. Gerard's insights and observations of the natural world and its common themes provides reflective company when we look through his perceptive and probing eyes.

Examines how corn began to grow in the early Americas, why it was important to Native Americans, and how it became a staple product in many other countries.

When the hail starts to fall, Atina Diffley doesn’t compare it to golf balls. She’s a farmer. It’s “as big as a B-size potato.” As her bombarded land turns white, she and her husband Martin huddle under a blanket and reminisce: the one-hundred-mile-per-hour winds; the eleven-inch rainfall (“that broccoli turned out gorgeous”); the hail disaster of 1977. The romance of farming washed away a long time ago, but the love? Never. In telling her story of working the land, coaxing good food from the fertile soil, Atina Diffley reminds us of an ultimate truth: we live in relationships—with the earth, plants and animals, families and communities. A memoir of making these essential relationships work in the face of challenges as natural as weather and as unnatural as corporate politics, her book is a firsthand history of getting in at the “ground level” of organic farming. One of the first certified organic produce farms in the Midwest, the Diffleys’ Gardens of Eagan helped to usher in a new kind of green revolution in the heart of America’s farmland, supplying their roadside stand and a growing number of local food co-ops. This is a story of a world transformed—and reclaimed—one square acre at a time. And yet, after surviving punishing storms and the devastating loss of fifth-generation Diffley family land to suburban development, the Diffleys faced the ultimate challenge: the threat of eminent domain for a crude oil pipeline proposed by one of the largest privately owned companies in the world, notorious polluters Koch Industries. As Atina Diffley tells her David-versus-Goliath tale, she gives readers everything from expert instruction in organic farming to an entrepreneur’s manual on how to grow a business to a legal thriller about battling corporate arrogance to a love story about a single mother falling for a good, big-hearted man.

Poetry. Native American Studies. Art. In EARS OF CORN: LISTEN, renowned Native American potter and poet Max Early gracefully details both the everyday and the extraordinary moments of family and community life, work and art, sadness and celebration at the Laguna Pueblo of New Mexico. Within the four seasons—Ty'ee-Tra, Kushra- Tyee, Heyya-Ts'ee, and Kooka—the beauty of Early's writing beckons the reader to accompany him on the journey between ancient and modern times. Including an historical Preface by the author, an Introduction by Simon J. Ortiz, and photographs of Early's family and award-winning art, this debut poetry book is profound in its welcome and its teachings. EARS OF CORN: LISTEN is perfect for the individual reader and for classroom settings.

Life on earth is facing unprecedented challenges from global warming, war, and mass extinctions. The plight of seeds is a less visible but no less fundamental threat to our survival. Seeds are at the heart of the planet's life-support systems. Their power to regenerate and adapt are essential to maintaining our food supply and our ability to cope with a changing climate. In Uncertain Peril, environmental journalist Claire Hope Cummings exposes the stories behind the rise of industrial agriculture and plant biotechnology, the fall of public interest science, and the folly of patenting seeds. She examines how farming communities are coping with declining water, soil, and fossil fuels, as well as with new commercial technologies. Will genetically engineered and "terminator" seeds lead to certain promise, as some have hoped, or are we embarking on a path of uncertain peril? Will the "doomsday vault" under construction in the Arctic, designed to store millions of seeds, save the genetic diversity of the world's agriculture? To answer these questions and others, Cummings takes readers from the Fertile Crescent in Iraq to the island of Kaua'i in Hawai'i; from Oaxaca, Mexico, to the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. She examines the plight of farmers who have planted transgenic seeds and scientists who have been persecuted for revealing the dangers of modified genes. At each turn, Cummings looks deeply into the relationship between people and plants. She examines the possibilities for both scarcity and abundance and tells the stories of local communities that are producing food and fuel sustainably and providing for the future. The choices we make about how we feed ourselves now will determine whether or not seeds will continue as a generous source of sustenance and remain the common heritage of all humanity. It comes down to this: whoever controls the future of seeds controls the future of life on earth. Uncertain Peril is a powerful reminder that what's at stake right now is nothing less than the nature of the future.

Anna is reluctant to plant the kernels of corn her grandpa has left her upon his death, until she realizes that the act will help her remember the times they listened to the music of the corn together.