For nearly five decades, award-winning poet Brendan Galvin has written about the birds of the tidal flats, woods, and marshes around his Cape Cod home and on islands in the North Atlantic. He knows their field marks, habits, and songs, and his work demonstrates an obvious fascination with them. Whirl Is King gathers forty-three of his bird poems about herons, owls, shorebirds, warblers, raptors, wrens, and other exotic visitors blown in by wind and storm.
Seen from various angles and stratagems, Galvin's migrants and locals are always in motion, acting and acted upon, sometimes predatory, sometimes possessing mythic qualities. In tones ranging from the elegiac to the hilarious, these poems inhabit the overlapping borders of human and avian life: "not to salute such / charity of song / though it be plain as / thumbsqueaks on clear windowpanes, / not to say their names, / and the shadow of death passes / across our tongues." Whirl Is King features Galvin's hallmark descriptive powers and verbal music on full display and demonstrates his talent as a contemporary poet.
Or split into 4x interest-free payments of 25% on orders over R50
Learn more
For nearly five decades, award-winning poet Brendan Galvin has written about the birds of the tidal flats, woods, and marshes around his Cape Cod home and on islands in the North Atlantic. He knows their field marks, habits, and songs, and his work demonstrates an obvious fascination with them. Whirl Is King gathers forty-three of his bird poems about herons, owls, shorebirds, warblers, raptors, wrens, and other exotic visitors blown in by wind and storm.
Seen from various angles and stratagems, Galvin's migrants and locals are always in motion, acting and acted upon, sometimes predatory, sometimes possessing mythic qualities. In tones ranging from the elegiac to the hilarious, these poems inhabit the overlapping borders of human and avian life: "not to salute such / charity of song / though it be plain as / thumbsqueaks on clear windowpanes, / not to say their names, / and the shadow of death passes / across our tongues." Whirl Is King features Galvin's hallmark descriptive powers and verbal music on full display and demonstrates his talent as a contemporary poet.
Imprint | Louisiana State University Press |
Country of origin | United States |
Release date | September 2008 |
Availability | Supplier out of stock. If you add this item to your wish list we will let you know when it becomes available. |
First published | September 2008 |
Authors | Brendan Galvin |
Dimensions | 229 x 152 x 8mm (L x W x T) |
Format | Paperback |
Pages | 80 |
ISBN-13 | 978-0-8071-3350-7 |
Barcode | 9780807133507 |
Categories | |
LSN | 0-8071-3350-7 |