Three Things: Feathered Edition
I’ve been staring at the spine of Audubon’s Birds of America (Popular Edition, 1950) on my shelf for the past few weeks, and now that the weather has warmed and the warblers and grebes and other migratory birds are either returning or passing through, it seems a fitting time to do a Three Things on our feathered friends. I have for you this week a John Martin painting, a photograph by Manuel Presti (which won him the 2005 Wildlife Photographer of the Year award, and which you may recognize from Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky album cover), and, of course, an Audubon.
I thought about pulling out a poem or excerpt featuring fowl, but I’ve decided I’d rather hear your picks instead. What are your favorite bird-related pieces?
John Martin, Assuaging of the Waters, 1840. Oil on canvas. Church of Scotland General Assembly, Edinburgh.
Manuel Presti, Sky Chase, 2005. Photograph. Taken in Rome, Italy.
John James Audubon, Little Blue Heron, Plate 23. From Audubon’s Birds of America. Popular Edition. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1950.
And here’s a bonus thing, because let’s face it: birds can be sinister, sometimes, too. (Disclaimer: if birds frighten you, you probably shouldn’t click.)
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I have been fascinated with John Martin for some time now. He’s been linked to and interconnected with a grand host of history’s finest writers and artists: Dickens, Mary Shelley, Thomas Cole, Emerson, Jane Webb. “The Great Day of His Wrath” is amazing, but quite frightening.
Yes indeed! Martin’s work is a visual embodiment of that British Romantic period: humid, sweeping epics with dark undertones… you can just hear the violins swelling in the background. It’s no wonder that the Brontës are said to have been very influenced by his work.
Apparently the Tate Britain is staging a large exhibition of his work this fall… I imagine standing in a room full of sagas would be at least a little bit stirring.
The Brontes, too? I believe you, but I’m trying to see how that all fits together. Hmmm. Wuthering Heights and Old-Testamenty refuting of amoral love with grand, sweeping landscape portraiture? My apologies: I have a Monday headache. I do enjoy these “Three Things” vignettes. Quite refreshing.
Haha, yes, comparing the specific subject matter of Martin and Wuthering Heights is a bit of a (humorous) stretch. I meant, though, not romantic as in love, but as in Romanticism: championing emotions and intuition over science and industrialism, often using the wild, untamed natural world as a tool (Martin’s scapes, and later seen in Brontë’s moors).
These “vignettes” are much more delightful when there’s exchange, so many thanks to you for joining the conversations.
I’ve got to give a shout out to Wallace Stevens’ beautiful “13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”. Stevens is one of my favorite poets and this is one of his most well known poems. In 13 short stanzas Stevens uses a blackbird as a way into the human experience and our connection to nature. In the fourth stanza he writes, “A man and a woman / Are one. / A man and a woman and a blackbird / Are one.”
I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention a song by Twin Cities rap group Doomtree. “The Wren” features rappers Dessa and Sims using the image of a dead bird to explore a failed relationship. A different type of poetry, to be sure, but no less effective. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_kopCIeb1Q
I’ve read some Wallace Stevens, but haven’t read that one. It’s interesting, the effect that the short sections have on the poem. Very fragmented feel, but yet the bird and general theme unify it. Thanks for sharing Timothy!
Glad you mentioned Doomtree! Did you see that Sims is performing FOR FREE this July 15? Part of the Summer Music Festival at Northrop. I’m so there.
Here’s my bird poem, from one of my favorite poets Ted Kooser, called “The Early Bird.”
“Still dark, and raining hard
on a cold May morning
and yet the early bird
is out there chirping,
chirping its sweet-sour
wooden-pulley notes,
pleased, it would seem,
to be given work,
hauling the heavy bucket of dawn
up from the darkness,
note over note,
and letting us drink.”
Thanks for sharing that Kooser poem! He’s on my list of poets whose work I’m ashamed that I haven’t read. He’s up next! Any suggestions for places to start? What’s your favorite of his collections? If you can find Stevens’ book Harmonium I’d suggest starting there (it was his first – natural starting place), but I found a collected works that was only $5 so you may as well go whole hog and pick that up. It might even be easier to find (I think Harmonium is out of print).
I was unaware of the free Sims show! If I’m not working, I’ll be there! I’ve seen members of Doomtree perform more times than I can count, and even booked them to play at my college during my tenure working for the radio station. They’ve got a special thing going on. I recommend them to folks who aren’t usually rap fans and generally have success converting them (especially with Cecil Otter and Dessa’s work).
I LOVE Ted Kooser. The only full collection I have of his is “Delights and Shadows,” and it’s wonderful. My favorite poem of that collection is “Old Lilacs” – I think I wrote a blog about it earlier this spring, actually…a
I added Stevens to my next Half Price Books trip list! Thanks for the recommendation.
And yes, Doomtree is stellar. Dessa is really active in the literary community, too – I see she’s running some classes/workshops at The Loft this summer for their young adult program! And, I must confess, the reason I know about the Sims concert is because my day job is pulling together that series, so I hear ya on booking them. 😉
My favorite stanza from the Stevens poem (which I, too, just read for the first time) is V:
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
After reading that poem, I clicked onto “Poet as Immortal Bird” by Ron Padgett which I also had never read, and which I quite enjoyed (although I much prefer how I read it in my head, to the audio clip there): http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19922
I’m glad you both enjoyed the Stevens poem! He was one of the pioneers of lyric poems with numbered sections, though by no means is all of his poetry like that.
I agree Hazel, Padgett’s poem is great, but I also preferred my reading to the audio clip. Funny how that works. Are there any poets whose work you enjoy hearing them read? I have a cassette of T.S. Eliot reading “Four Quartos” that’s pretty incredible. Occasionally I put it on and listen to it before bed, though it’s also great on long car rides.
Wren: I just made a Half Price run myself and did some damage to my bank account. Picked up “Delights and Shadows” and had to restrain myself from grabbing two other Kooser collections. I’ve been reading a lot of recent Pulitzer Prize winning collections recently (reread Tretheway’s “Native Guard”, Graham’s “Dream of a Unified Field” and I’m currently reading Glück’s “The Wild Iris”) so now that I’ve got Kooser’s winning collection I think I’m going to have to make a “thing” of it and try to read all the winners. Maybe start a blog where I review all of them or something.