Birds in the hand : fiction and poetry about birds / edited by Dylan Nelson and Kent Nelson.

Format:

• Book

Contributor:

• Nelson, Dylan.
• Nelson, Kent, 1943-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

• Birds--Literary collections.
• American literature.
• English literature.
• Birds.

Genre:

• Literary collections.
• Literature.

Physical Description:

xvi, 374 pages ; 22 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : North Point Press, 2004.

Summary:

Whether we watch birds at our feeders, travel vast distances to identify rare species, or simply pause in a busy day to listen to the call of a dove or the trill of a warbler, birds sustain us. Owls, hummingbirds, hawks, sparrows, wrens, herons, and many other birds populate this striking collection of fiction and poetry. In works from a celebrated group of contemporary authors, birds are sources of inspiration, confrontation, and revelation. The death of a kingfisher reinforces a boy's empathy for his beloved father; the song of a hermit thrush inspires a meditation on the transitory nature of existence; a bird hospital in India teaches that all life is precious. These stories and poems take us from New York and Hoboken to the Salton Sea and the wilds of Montana, from a hardware store to the westernmost Aleutian island, from a federal prison to forests, marshes, and seacoasts, and they bring to life the complex, often startling relationships between birds and human beings. By turns comical and poignant, disturbing and exhilarating, Birds in the Hand testifies to the ongoing mystery of birds, and to the mystery of the human heart.

Contents:

• Praise Them / Li-Young Lee 3
• The Kingfisher / Leslie Norris 4
• Angel of Mercy, Angel of Wrath / Ethan Canin 10
• The Hummingbird: A Seduction / Pattiann Rogers 19
• Duck Blind / Robert Hass 21
• The White Ibis / Robert Hill Long 22
• Hardware Sparrows / R. T. Smith 24
• The Bird Watcher / David Wagoner 26
• Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot / Robert Olen Butler 38
• Abracadabra Kit / Joel Brouwer 45
• Under the Vulture-Tree / David Bottoms 47
• 27,000 Miles / Albert Goldbarth 48
• The Jain Bird Hospital in Delhi / William Meredith 49
• The Elixir / Sheri Joseph 51
• from Prodigal Summer / Barbara Kingsolver 56
• Cataract / Charles Baxter 59
• How to Obtain Eagle Feathers for Religious Use / Sherman Alexie 76
• Eagle Poem / Joy Harjo 79
• At the Shorebird Festival: Grays Harbor County, Washington / Martha Silano 80
• North Haven / Elizabeth Bishop 82
• The Birds of Vietnam / Hayden Carruth 84
• from The Bird Artist / Howard Norman 86
• Birds with No Feet / Andrea Barrett 99
• Flamingos / Greg Pape 117
• Driving Myself to a Poetry Reading / Billy Collins 119
• The Bird Feeder / William Hathaway 120
• The Sea We Read About / Philip Levine 122
• Rara Avis / T. C. Boyle 124
• Flight / John L'Heureux 129
• How to Build an Owl / Kathleen Lynch 135
• A Phoebe's Nest / W. D. Snodgrass 136
• Corporate Geese / Chase Twichell 139
• The Singing / Kim Addonizio 142
• Bizarzyski, Mad Bard, Carpenter Savant, and Chuckwagon Wrangler of Manchester, Montana, Feeds the Finicky Birds / Paul Zarzyski 143
• The Turkey / Flannery O'Connor 145
• A Still Moment / Eudora Welty 157
• Worlds Apart / Richard Jackson 170
• Big Bird Comes to the Rio Grande Valley in 1976 / Jan Epton Seale 172
• Owls / Louise Erdrich 174
• Heart of Autumn / Robert Penn Warren 176
• The Cranes / Peter Meinke 177
• A Long Sunday / Maximilian Schlaks 180
• Bird / William Archila 196
• Guts / Daisy Fried 199
• Detail from the Creation of Man / Jorie Graham 200
• Against Flight / Rita Dove 205
• Watching the Nighthawk's Dive / Robert Dana 207
• Dreaming Crow / Gladys Swan 209
• Transmigrations / Kellie Wells 226
• The Heron / Wendell Berry 240
• One for the Life List / Brendan Galvin 241
• The Hohntor / Richard Foerster 243
• Birding the Battle of Attu / Macklin Smith 245
• Cedar Waxwing on Scarlet Firethorn / Stanley Plumly 247
• from Farmer / Jim Harrison 249
• Little Frogs in a Ditch / Tim Gautreaux 254
• That Woman / Sarah Getty 277
• In June, In Summer / B. J. Buckley 279
• Bringing Down the Birds / Maxine Kumin 281
• Raven Days / Andrew Hudgins 283
• The Writer / Richard Wilbur 284
• Emory Bear Hands' Birds / Barry Lopez 286
• Beyond Mecca / Maya Sonenberg 294
• A Hermit Thrush / Amy Clampitt 314
• The Quail / James Wright 317
• Drifting Off / Seamus Heaney 319
• Birds of Hoboken / William Wenthe 321
• No Matter What Has Happened This May / Reginald Gibbons 323
• A Dove of the East / Mark Helprin 325
• The Season of Phantasmal Peace / Derek Walcott 358.

ISBN:

086547673X

OCLC:

53253126