The Seed Speaker
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Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Graduate Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2016 The eedS Speaker Adam Blake Wright Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd Part of the Creative Writing Commons Recommended Citation Wright, Adam Blake, "The eS ed Speaker" (2016). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 15169. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/15169 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Seed Speaker by Adam Blake Wright A thesis submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF FINE ARTS Major: Creative Writing and Environment Program of Study Committee: Charissa Menefee, Major Professor Christiana Langenberg Brianna Burke Clark Wolf Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 2016 Copyright © Adam Blake Wright, 2016. All rights reserved. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE . iii PART I. THE STALKS CHAPTER 1. GO FETCH . 1 CHAPTER 2. TOP TEEN HUNKS . 9 CHAPTER 3. CORPORATE PERKS . 14 CHAPTER 4. LIFETIME SUPPLY . 18 CHAPTER 5. PHOTO-SYNTHESIS™ . 23 CHAPTER 6. MERMAID VACATION . 27 CHAPTER 7. SLURRY . 31 CHAPTER 8. FRACKING FLUID . 35 CHAPTER 9. THE GHOSTBUSTERS CLUB . 38 CHAPTER 10. SLASH-AND-BURN. 43 PART II. THE FIELD CHAPTER 11. WILDFLOWERS . 47 CHAPTER 12. BURIAL . 52 CHAPTER 13. INVASIVE SPECIES . 58 CHAPTER 14. PRECISION TECHNOLOGY . 62 CHAPTER 15. BUY ONE GET ONE FREE . 68 CHAPTER 16. FAX TO THE MAX . 75 CHAPTER 17. SOI SURPRISE . 81 iii CHAPTER 18. EXAMINATION STATION . 86 CHAPTER 19. FARM FRENZY . 93 CHAPTER 20. CORPORATE REVIEW . 99 CHAPTER 21. NATURAL DISASTER . 106 CHAPTER 22. YOU MEAN YOU EAT THOSE? . 114 PART III. THE ROOTS CHAPTER 23. CORPORATE RESEARCH. 122 CHAPTER 24. X MARKS THE SPOT . 131 CHAPTER 25. BLACK BOX PLUMBING . 139 CHAPTER 26. JOHNNY APPLESEED’S FANTASYLAND BOARDWALK . 144 CHAPTER 27. FINDERS KEEPERS . 150 CHAPTER 28. STARLIGHT . 155 WORKS CONSULTED . 165 iv PREFACE As U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Earl L. Butz once said, “Food is a weapon.” In other words, control what people eat and you control everything. My thesis thus began with a simple question: What would happen if Monsanto took over the world? Though this might seem preposterous, agriculture is a complex adaptive system that interacts with nearly every aspect of our globalized era, including foreign policy, trade, immigration, science, warfare, technology, education, and health care—the list goes on. In that case, what will happen if corporate power continues to be consolidated, not only in the agricultural sector (for example: the recent merger of chemical companies Dow and DuPont) but also in seemingly every other global industry? What will happen if climate change wreaks more havoc than we ever thought possible? What will happen as social media evolves into an increasingly influential tool for revolt? What will happen once virtual reality completely replaces our interaction with nature? What will happen as more and more of the world’s citizens continue to flee rural areas for urban centers? What will happen when people can no longer grow food freely and must constantly pay an ever-growing series of fees and taxes and royalties, stripped of their most basic right to survival? Beyond these somewhat unexpected ideas, a simple conversation with a friend helped shape The Seed Speaker. Though my friend’s extended family owns a multi-million-dollar food company, her bipolar grandfather was kicked out of the business due to his erratic and morally questionable behavior. As such, my friend grew up around an immense amount of power and privilege yet never received the direct benefits of said power and privilege. From this story (and with permission, of course), I began to construct a main character—one who was to inherit a great dynasty but is now a shunned observer consumed with contempt. This notion served as the novel’s interior access point v and allowed me to create a complex, muddied world of family intrigue tarnished by corporate corruption. Aside from the seeds of inspiration that sprouted my thesis in its infancy, the majority of my novel is a direct reflection of my experience as a dual degree graduate student in Creative Writing and Sustainable Agriculture at the nation’s first public land-grand institution. For example, last summer I took part in an eight-day tour of Iowa in which I visited an industrial feedlot and had conversations with farmers about illegal immigration, the War on Drugs, the 1980s Farm Crisis, and the Des Moines Water Works lawsuit. I attended back-to-back lectures by Kevin Fulta, a leading GMO proponent, and Vandana Shiva, an internationally-known anti-GMO advocate—both in the same month. As a freelance writer for Edible: Iowa, I have investigated topics ranging from the local food movement to sustainable meat processing. Quite simply, I filter my life through the lens of food, which in turn enriches and informs all of my creative work. Perhaps no other experience has influenced The Seed Speaker more than my time as the summer writer-in-residence at the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory, a 147-acre biological field station that offers college courses and research opportunities in the Iowa Great Lakes region. At this site I had the privilege to work with some of the world’s leading research scientists. With their aid, I visited a Department of Natural Resources fish hatchery, trapped field mice for a mammology course, participated in the excavation of Native American artifacts with the State Archaeologist of Iowa, collected algae samples with a Bulgarian limnologist, spent fifteen straight hours cooking alongside dining staff, and shadowed a technical assistant in one of the state’s most prominent water quality labs. In doing so, I was able to have frank conversations about topics such as agricultural policy, research ethics, and the public distrust of science. One of the novel’s characters, Mama Bear, is an amalgamation of the many scientists, advocates, and students I met. Furthermore, not only did these interactions inform my novel and ground it in real-world science, but they also underscored vi agriculture’s disastrous impacts on Iowa’s waters. Without my residency at the Lakeside Lab, water would not have emerged as a central focus in Part II of the novel. When writing about food in a state that can cynically be described as nothing more than a genetically modified cornfield, it can be hard to have hope and advocate for change. That is why The Seed Speaker is a young adult novel inspired by the many students with whom I have interacted; I have a passion for empowering youth and am incredibly appreciative of their imagination, tenacity, and lack of inhibition. I believe now more than ever that change is incremental and often does not visibly manifest itself until another generation comes to power. In that regard, I greatly admire young adult novels such as The Hunger Games. Not only is the book immensely popular and entertaining, but it also brings up serious themes of poverty, corporate control, military power, and media manipulation. It is a model piece that proves how young adults can be challenged to rethink the world. That art can make a difference. That change is possible. In writing this novel, I often thought of my twelve-year-old cousin Bella. She is smart, beautiful, and wants to be a doctor like her father. She loves to read and e-mails me all the time about how she can’t wait to own my book. The Seed Speaker is dedicated her. It is a warning about the world that she is inheriting—power should not be for the few; women should not value themselves solely in the context of romantic partnerships; food is something to be loved and respected; tradition is just as important as technology; all life on Earth should be valued dearly; and our broken world must be fixed before it is too late. In many ways, this is also a novel about words, language, and history. As a writer and teacher, I look at rhetoric closely and continually note the influence of and resistance against corporate interests on our campus. For example, the Curtiss Hall Monsanto Student Services Wing sits directly across from many of my sustainable agriculture classes to form an ironic map of competing ideologies. Likewise, I received a private tour of the Monsanto Huxley Learning Facility vii by Director of Millennial Engagement Vance Crowe, an experience that more than any exposed me to the desperate lengths to which corporations will go to manipulate the public and shape a vocabulary that often represents the exact opposite of their actions. Words are powerful. So what does it mean when everything is trademarked and capitalized? What happens when words are transformed and stripped of their original meanings? In a world infiltrated by tiny screens and multimodal media, the written word is perhaps more powerful than ever before. Young people need to know how to look behind the curtain, question authority, and dig deep to avoid accepting mass messages at face value. Change doesn’t happen if we only read about it on Twitter. And so in the end I want you and Bella and other readers to know this: That for me what began as a novel of fear evolved into one of hope. I believe in a world in which technology and tradition can live in harmony. I believe in a world in which food sovereignty is a right for all.