{"product_id":"b-rds-9781647691158","title":"B\/RDS","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eB\/RDS\u003c\/i\u003e endeavors to dismantle discourses that create an artificial distinction between nature and humanity through a subversive erasure of an iconic work of natural history: John James Audubon’s \u003ci\u003eBirds of America\u003c\/i\u003e (1827-1838). This process of erasure considers the text of \u003ci\u003eBirds of America\u003c\/i\u003e as an archival cage. The author selectively erases words from the textual cage to reveal its ambiguity and the complex relationship between humanity and the other-than-human world. As the cage disappears, leaving a space for scarce, lyrical poems, birds break free, their voices inextricably entangled with ours.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Prose poems written in the author’s own words and prompted by the erasure process are also interspersed throughout the collection. These migratory poems, like ripples, trace the link between past and present and reveal the human-nature disconnect at the root cause of environmental and social problems, including the COVID-19 pandemic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Along its five movements, \u003ci\u003eB\/RDS\u003c\/i\u003e also explores how we can reimagine our relationship to environment through language within new frameworks of interconnectedness. Thus, as the collection resists the distinction between nature and culture on which traditional nature poetry relies, it also acts as an ecopoetic manifesto. It suggests that a critical, lyrical poetry could contribute to ecological awareness by singing humanity back within nature. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e“B\/RDS \u003c\/i\u003eis a spellbinding immersion into a disappeared world and brand-new language. Through attention to sound, image, syntax, and diction, Szymkowiak creates a new experience of poetry, of history, and of the natural world. A masterful conversation unfolds in these pages that stitches together past and present, human and non-human, loss and survival. \u003ci\u003eB\/RDS\u003c\/i\u003e is a re-seeing, and a restoration. It is not ‘\u003ci\u003egrim auguries, neither convenient evil. Only four wings unstitched from the sky.\"—Kyce Bello, author of \u003ci\u003eRefugia\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In BÉatrice Szymkowiak’s stellar debut \u003ci\u003eB\/RDS\u003c\/i\u003e, poems 'murmur through shattered glass' as they quiver, perch, breed, and 'hatch from blades of grass.' I’m in awe of this work, the way it sings and moves, freed from the cage of time and attempted erasure. A critical collection that reminds us that we 'cannot conceive a single wing \/ passing over a meadow towards the earth, \/ that trembles.\"—Sherwin Bitsui, author of \u003ci\u003eDissolve\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"With the human caused extinction of at least 469 known species of birds, Beatrice Szymkowiak’s highly inventive \u003ci\u003eB\/RDS\u003c\/i\u003e critiques the ecologically ruinous discourses of natural history with its nature\/culture divide. With the understanding that J. J. Audubon killed and then contorted the birds he captured in paintings—'their so tender necks \/…the sickle of sorrow'—Szymkowiak’s lyrical erasure of his \u003ci\u003eBirds of America\u003c\/i\u003e reveals and ultimately dismantles what she calls “an archival cage,” so birds might escape, their voices becoming emmeshed with our own: 'Who is what is who? Fe\/male, dirt, b\/rd, d\/earth. You \u0026amp; I \u0026amp;, \u0026amp;, \u0026amp;. Us.' In Szymkowiak’s hands, language is deconstructed and reinvented with such acute attention and care that every word, like another living being, transforms us, the collection serving a vision of interconnectedness that resists, at every turn, human exploitation of the rest of the natural world.\"—Brenda CÁrdenas, author of \u003ci\u003eTrace and Boomerang\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"Where other poets often content themselves with imagining and describing catastrophe, in this collection apocalypse resounds at the level of language itself. There are skyscapes and there are nests, breathtakingly contingent conjunctions of softness and structure. This book will stay with you, will teach you to see flickering outlines in the shadows, to hear the echo of wingbeats in the desolate breezes.\"—Monica Youn, author of \u003ci\u003eBlackacre\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"In this profound collection, BÉatrice Szymkowiak has conjured lyric and erasure poems to cross the vast distance of extinction and re-animate the spectral birds archived in J. J. Audubon’s iconic 19th century ornithological text, \u003ci\u003eBirds of America.\u003c\/i\u003e Read these poems aloud: you will hear the cage of silence slit open and the ardent voices of thousands upon thousands of winged throats will migrate from the horizon. And when they plunge towards you, the earth will tremble with song.\"—Craig Santos Perez \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eForeword\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePreface\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e[We want to touch the sky…]\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eB\/RDS\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAlong Shallow \u0026amp; Grassy Shores\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eI\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAround the Heavens\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eIt Is Nothing but a Song\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eViscera\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSunset Mingled in Ploughed Earth, Yields\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Trembling\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eGnawings\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Night Is Pitch-Dark but We \/\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eRe\/sound\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHow Far South It May Be\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Latter Part of Autumn\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eII\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAmerican Co.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Winged Lovers\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA \/complete History\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFierce Sticks \u0026amp; Stakes \/ Once Hunger\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSpring Was the Thickness of a Dollar\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHow Bodies with Wings\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSans Doute l’Oiseau\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Instant They Are Caught, They Are Wont to Mute\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHem\/locks\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eIII\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eConfinement Notes\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOur Small Attachments. An Ache\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eIn the Interior\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSpring along the Ridge\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWherever Sun Ends\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHumanity Fills \/our Hearts\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCleft\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Higher\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eStones of Shrines. Oil Slick\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBecalmed\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eIV\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDecree of Shyness\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Natural History Society\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Only Authentic Account\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA Prize! A Prize! A New American Fauna\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eExhibit\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMa\/rion\/ette\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMigrations Di\/splayed as Sinew\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAs if Bewildered\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eIdentified Trace Specimen\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePapillae\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eV\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOf Be\/coming\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBlades of Grass\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOut of their Breasts \/ as if\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWe almost Touched Each Other\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNotwithstanding\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA\/part\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTongues, a Discontinuity \/ Occurs\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAs Blossoms Fade\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWhole. Our Ardent Song\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTo the Water That Carries Them Gently\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCODA\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Remembrance of Thousands\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAcknowledgements\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"University of Utah Press,U.S.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51041964753239,"sku":"9781647691158","price":16.11,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781647691158.jpg?v=1750952397","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/b-rds-9781647691158","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}