The Bold News of Birdcalls by Edward Morin

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Bold News of Birdcalls by Edward Morin Meg Kearney (bio) the bold news of birdcalls Edward Morin Kelsay Books https://kelsaybooks.com/products/the-bold-news-of-birdcalls 102 pages; Print, $18.50 "It might almost be said that the birds are all birds of the poets and of no one else, because it is only the poetical temperament that fully responds to them," said John Burroughs in the opening line of his Birds and Poets (1877). As proof, the world abounds with poems about and inspired by birds. Although Edward Morin's new book often strays from that feathered subject, The Bold News of Birdcalls is filled with a variety of songs as well as the "news" of stories. The collection is divided into four sections of fairly equal size, each with a varied tone suggested by its title: "Noise of Blue Jays," "Melody of Wrens," "Endurance of Robins," and "Passage of Swans." With boisterous, troublesome jays ("sinister as Dutch elm disease") as its [End Page 136] backdrop, part 1 explores themes of life and death through its free-verse elegies for fellow poet-teacher friends, a poem titled "Icicles" ("Stilettos of ice, / as many as stabbed Caesar"), as well as a gripping narrative detailing the speaker as victim of an armed robbery that nearly saw him killed. A tribute to those "black-winged acrobats," "Bank Swallows" almost reads like a love poem as the speaker recalls finding the swallows' nest: "Remember, love, our barefooted climb / in dry roots thin as hair, up the sliding, / steep sand hill?" But it ends on an ominous note as the birds "flutter and scold above us / … throwing shadows the size of hawks." In "Depression," a jack-o'-lantern sits "ravaged" in the post-Halloween season just as we humans are ravaged by the passing of years; its "limp mouth / twists crookedly as during a stroke." And the last poem in the section, "Yes," tells the story of Joe Sartori, a neighbor of the speaker's parents whom the speaker visits when home from college. Sartori, wheelchair-bound and nearly completely paralyzed, is capable of saying only one word: "Yes." This sort of one-note song proves to be an inspiration to the speaker, when he is old enough to appreciate the affirmation embodied in the word. Part 2 kicks off with a sort of ode in tercets to the "plain-brown-wrappered wren" who appears in April seeking summer "housing." While the goldfinches "emulate forsythias' hue," the plain wren is a "friend of gardeners" with a surprisingly strong song: Voice vibrations pulsate from chin through tall throatand halfway down the chest. Such breath control!What long, loud peals for such a little bell. This is a section of nostalgia, with the speaker recalling memories of a childhood spent in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. We take a ride on the "Milk Train"; we meet Brad, a high school classmate who died young; we hear the clang of metal on glass as carpenter's nails are poured into a jar; we join in the rallying cry to rid the Midwest's wetlands of the invader-phragmites choking out the cattails and pushing out the wildlife; we listen to a fish story of "The Big One" that got away; and wince when a man falls from a ladder as well as when the baseball coach calls a twelve-year-old second baseman an "idiot," only to remember—much to his embarrassment and horror—that the boy is "slow witted." The speaker is haunted by his mistake, recalling being labeled a [End Page 137] "moron" by schoolmates as a youth; and "Now that I'd acted really dumb, the mantra / 'You idiot!' choked deep in my throat." Morin's is a warm and empathetic voice, buoyed and inspired by birds. His very soul is lifted by seeing them and hearing their calls—"as when indigo buntings fly through sunlight, / magically changing from black to bright blue" and when from the canopy of deep woods ringsone distant thrush's haunting descant …This recluse trills its two voice boxeslike Pan's double flute. The poems in part 2 are often written in...