Studies of Familiar Birds: Poems Contributor(s): Green, Carrie (Author) |
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ISBN: 1773490974 ISBN-13: 9781773490977 Publisher: Able Muse Press OUR PRICE: $26.96 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: December 2020 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Poetry | American - General - Nature | Animals - Birds - Family & Relationships | Death, Grief, Bereavement |
Dewey: 811.6 |
Physical Information: 0.38" H x 6" W x 9" (0.68 lbs) 92 pages |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Carrie Green's Studies of Familiar Birds reflects upon the series of nest-and-egg illustrations that Virginia Jones saw to completion after her daughter, who had begun the project, died. The artist's loss in the late nineteenth century is presented in tandem with the poet's artistic response to the death of her own father. Other poems draw inspiration from altered vintage photographs in Sara Angelucci's Aviary series, or from firsthand observations of birds and humans. This collection, unique in subject and sensibility, is a special honoree of the 2019 Able Muse Book Award. PRAISE FOR STUDIES OF FAMILIAR BIRDS: Carrie Green's poems are as exquisitely crafted as the nests they depict, honoring the delicacy of loss. Studies of Familiar Birds explores, through elegy, ekphrasis, and ode, the tender affections for family and nature. Whether it is the nineteenth-century egg-and-nest illustrations of Genevieve and Virginia Jones, the avid gaze upon commonplace birds, or the remembrance of the poet's own beloved father, this collection of poems creates an aviary of light. Green writes with such grace and skill that the reader can't help but feel both the ache of having lost and the joy of having loved. I will return to this book again and again as it "teach[es] us to sing our grief." Birds are the embodiment of freedom; unconstrained by terrestrial limitations, they lift effortlessly into the sky, forming a feathery link between Heaven and earth. People who have been visited by angels report they have bird wings. We associate poets with birds: they mourn, call, cry, warn, and fly to places the gravity-bound human body can only follow with ear, eye, and heart. Weaving accounts of winged things into unique receptacles for grief and praise ["But surely we all know/ this nest. We've found it/ in our coffee cans, / in our barns and privies-/ inside all our little caves/ of emptiness, mundane as pockets/ or a child's boot forgotten/ by the back door" ("House Wren")], Green resists the temptation to anthropomorphize, honoring in her animal subjects their inimitable features, instincts, capacities, and wildness. Her archive is the warp and weft of the world's remnants, "whether/ silk or weed stem, / velvet or vine," garnering from them wisdom on how to survive life's losses and to sing despite them. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Carrie Green earned her MFA at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and has received grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women, the Kentucky Arts Council, and the Louisiana Division of the Arts. Her poems have appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Poetry Northwest, River Styx, Flyway, Blackbird, Cave Wall, DIAGRAM, and elsewhere. |