[mou] Bird Poetry Books

[fred lesher]

"Urban Nature"-poems about wildlife in the city,
Milkweed Editions, 2000 includes "bird" poems, recent
realistic American poetry including "A Guide to Urban
Birds": parking lot gulls, highway hawks, & dump
swallows; "Red Bird" opening lines "Now I feel
safe/I've gotten my cardinal back again"; "Swifts at
Evening", a shape poem resembling a cloud of Chimney
Swifts funneling down into a chimney.

"Shared Sightings", an anthology of bird poems edited
by Sheila Golburgh Johnson, John Daniel & Co., Santa
Barbara, 1955. Titles such as "Roger Tory Peterson and
I", "Grackles"--opening lines "Attentive to the
morning light/arrange along telephone lines/quarter
notes on a staff/of bird gossip medley."

"Art of Birds" by Pablo Neruda, translated from the
Spanish into English, Univ. of Texas Press, 1985. In
my opinion the finest recent bird poems including
poems about real and imaginary birds: "Harris Hawk", &
"Greater Tinkler"--"The tinkler is transparent/cannot
be seen against the crystals,/and is invisible when it
flies:/ it is a bubble of the wind,/it is an icy
fugue,/it is a crystal palpitation." There are several
editions of this book with illustrations. The U. Of TX
Press edition is translated by Jack Schmitt with
illustrations by Jack Unruh. (Sketches and drawings)
Another edition is same title "Art of Birds" but both
Spanish & English, translated by Jack Schmitt
illustrations by Chiappe, Llobet, & Mata. (Realistic
art work in color). Lynx Edicions, 2002.

Try a used bookstore. Look for "Through the Year with
Birds & Poets", copyright 1900! An anthology with the
golden oldies such as Whitman's "Out of the Cradle
Endlessly Rocking" and "Birds" from Nature by Ralph
Emerson in couplets: "...All of worth and beauty
set/Gems in Natures cabinet."

There are more.

Fred Lesher, LaCrosse

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