Tell me, how are you surviving this April day?
These times call for finding ways to not only survive, but also to persist. Some days this might mean staying under the covers with a good novel; other days it could mean volunteering your time for a cause you care about — which might take a myriad of different forms. Maybe you’re going outdoors more.
Recently, I’ve been on a local book tour for Birdbrains: A Lyrical Guide to Washington State Birds. One lonely July weekend, less than two years ago, I had this crazy idea. What if I created a bird guide that matched poets and birds? What if I cajoled my friend Stephanie Delaney to write the bird notes? What if I went on a hunt for an artist that specialized in birds? Those two little words, “what if” hold so much power.
Fast forward to this past weekend. Birdbrains celebrated its nearly five month anniversary at the Seward Park Audubon Center in Seattle, WA. Poets, writers, and bird lovers gathered together in a space designated as an international flyway for the great bird migration now going on.
When I collaborated with Dr. Stephanie Delaney and Hiroko Seki, I never imagined the incredible reception this book has had so far—and it is barely five months old. What I love the most, however, are the personal stories that emerge when I talk to both audience members and contributors alike.
Recently, one new friend told me that she reads a bird poem and bird note each night before going to sleep (much better than doomscrolling); a local poet told me that her daughter’s art teach has invited her into the classroom to talk about her contribution to the book, and another contributor gave a copy to her mother, the woman who first taught her about the birds.
Now when I see the common pigeon, I wonder how Jane Hirshfield is doing as this is “her” bird and the Stellar’s jay always reminds me of Harold Taw—whose flash fiction piece invents a language for the squakey jay. Then there’s the chukar that lives in Eastern Washington, Texas, and in Palestine; this is Naomi Shihab Nye’s bird pal. The oddly named killdeer belongs to Kelli Russell Agodon, the cedar waxwing to sometimes Washington State resident, Catherine Barnett. The Northern flicker is the bird that I claim as my own. My gateway drug to the world of birding.
I know that filling the feeders with hot pepper suet and watching a piebald crow along the Puget Sound will not solve the global apocalypse it seems we are experiencing daily. However, without the birds I can’t look at the news from Gaza, Iran, Lebanon without being locked in despair. Birdbrains is the antidote.
Contributor Erin Murphy with her copy of Birdbrains: A Lyrical Guide to Washington State Birds. Murphy’s bird of choice was the American Robin.
Today I did an interview with a journalist who is also a birder. She asked me what I most wanted people to know about this book. I told her that I dreamed up Birdbrains for the new birder; for someone who wants a place to record their first sighting of a double-breasted cormorant or a tufted puffin. Someone who wants to share an “intriguing tidbit” on the cedar waxwing whose love of berries is literally intoxicating, often causing them to bump into things during their berry high. Or the fact that the cry of the red-tailed hawk is often used in movies to replace the more delicate sound of the bald eagle.
While Birdbrains is not technically a 20th century poet who has passed on, the other goal I have for this book is to keep these species healthy and alive beyond our lifetimes.
If you love birds or the poetry of Linda Bierds, Ellen Bass, Carolyn Forche, Major Jackson, Erin Malone, Naomi Shihab Nye, Kelli Russell Agodon, Martha Silano, Katy Ellis, or any of the 96 poets and writers in this collection — you can purchase your copy wherever fine books are sold. But this is not an advertisement; this is a reminder to go outside and look in the branches of your neighborhood trees, along the shoreline of any body of water. Who knows what you will see?
I wish I could have participated in this bird bonanza! My poems are brimming with wrens, hummingbirds, grosbeaks, crows, hawks, bushtits, finches, mockingbirds, woodpeckers, all sorts of sparrows and even magpies. I became a bird lady late in life, and I love it.
True that eagles sound more like laughing than something threatening.