Life List
Poems
Published on 14. January 2021
Book
Paperback/Softback
164 pages
978-1-7324968-7-3 (ISBN)
Description
2020 Montana Book Award Honor Book.
2021 Spur Award Finalist.
Includes an introduction by J. Drew Lanham, author of Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts and more than 20 original monotypes by Montana Artist Storrs Bishop.
"What is the soul if not the sum of the flights of a thousand birds?"
A kind of field guide in poetry, Life List pays tribute to the birds that have flown through Beaudin's years of watching and listening, through his "vain attempts to render in language the precarious circumstances of being alive." With a sharp critique of environmental, social and political issues, along with haunting ruminations on loss, love and the passing of time, these poems fill the skies with a feathered grace.
2021 Spur Award Finalist.
Includes an introduction by J. Drew Lanham, author of Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts and more than 20 original monotypes by Montana Artist Storrs Bishop.
"What is the soul if not the sum of the flights of a thousand birds?"
A kind of field guide in poetry, Life List pays tribute to the birds that have flown through Beaudin's years of watching and listening, through his "vain attempts to render in language the precarious circumstances of being alive." With a sharp critique of environmental, social and political issues, along with haunting ruminations on loss, love and the passing of time, these poems fill the skies with a feathered grace.
Reviews / Votes
"Exquisite and full of life like the birds themselves. In each poem we find clarity and compassion as we stand on the razor-edge of uncertainty." - Terry Tempest Williams"Passionate yet mature, this is Beaudin's most inspired and finest work. Every Montanan should own it, and every birder. Every reader." - Rick Bass
"Beaudin moves through the bird world in a state of meditative wonder. Like a rapt man with one eye pressed to a microscope, it is Beaudin's job to look-to look carefully. He reports back with equal care, and the paths he takes us down are delightful." -Michael Earl Craig (former Montana Poet Laureate)
"This is a powerful, creative, and environmentally grounded work. Beautiful and exquisite in its celebration of flight and how wilderness works its way into our blood and bones and calls us to something transcendent." -Shann Ray, author of American Copper
"Beaudin's Life List is a deftly woven catalogue of human experience through the keen observations of birds and landscapes. These poems find "the magic in the mundane" and exemplify and glorify all the intricate ways we are tied to this world. Beaudin masterfully translates the mysterious language between magpies and mountains and weaves it into a beautifully poetic tapestry."
- Michael Garrigan, author of Robbing the Pillars
"Life List, poem after impressive poem, is a strenuous & crucial effort to lift us all into loving consciousness by way of beauty, the sheer beauty of the natural world." -William Heyen, author of Shoah Train and Crazy Horse in Stillness
"Beaudin's poems are truly poems for this moment. To inhabit birds and other vulnerable creatures, along with the beauty and wildness that bequeath us our souls, is to name what's at stake in this moment. It has always been the poet's job, but now, it is their sacred calling. Beaudin delivers beautifully." - Winona Bateman, Climate Organizer with Families for a Livable Climate
"Beaudin's poems dip and swerve and caw; if you listen closely enough, you might just begin to understand that the ache of the human heart can only be translated through the language of crows." -Meg Kearney, author of An Unkindness of Ravens
"These poems beat with ancient songs from dinosaurs to the overlooked metal bucket. Marc Beaudin's poems ask us to pay attention not only to birds, but to our dreams, to the music that circles arounds us all." - Taylor Brorby, author Crude: Poems and Boys and Oil
"Life List at first glance might appear to be a collection "for the birds" given the Latin name assigned to each poems' feathered subject and accompanied by Storrs Bishop's monotype images, but you'll recognize these birds, his words, marking each poem and grounding us long enough to take flight in this outdoor field guide of an interior life. These poems find what every bird watcher and bird-brained poet is looking for: the magic in the mundane." - Mark Gibbons, Montana Poet Laureate (2021) author of The Imitation Blues and Mostly Cloudy
"A beautiful collection of poetry crafted for the eco-nature lover." -Montana Book Award Committee
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Over 20 original bird monotypes by Montana artist Storrs Bishop.
Dimensions
Height: 203 mm
Width: 127 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-7324968-7-3 (9781732496873)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Marc Beaudin is a poet, theatre artist, naturalist, bookseller, Ulysses-junkie, jazz-head, social anarchist and vagabondaoist currently living in the writer's haven of Livingston, Montana, dubbed "America's finest open-air asylum" for multiple reasons. He is the author of a hitchhiking memoir, Vagabond Song: Neo-Haibun from the Peregrine Journals, a poetry collection, The Moon Cracks Open, a novel, A Handful of Dust, and several poetry chapbooks and plays. Despite the available evidence, he believes the Brahms' Violin Concerto in D is more powerful than all the guns, smokestacks and coal trains in the world. More information, and his collection of bird photography, is available at CrowVoice.com.
Content
Introduction by J. Drew Lanham
Author's Note
Birds of the Eastern United States
Canada Goose - The Things We've Lost .......................
Brown Pelican - Carbon ...................................................
Common Loon - Loon Point ...........................................
Great Blue Heron - Another Blue ...................................
Double-crested Cormorant - Mortality .........................
Killdeer - Murder of the Stag ..........................................
Anhinga - In Excelsis Deo ..................................................
Bald Eagle - My Bones ......................................................
Mourning Dove - Distances ............................................
Ring-billed Gull - Dreams ... Odd .................................
American Herring Gull - Tawas Point, Earlier ............
Common Nighthawk - Religion .....................................
Great Horned Owl - Messenger .....................................
Eastern Screech Owl - Moonflower ...............................
Blue Jay - No Bird: Memory in Translation ..................
American Crow - Linguistics ..........................................
Northern Raven - Raven Wind ......................................
House Sparrow - What to Pray For ...............................
European Starling - Mortimer ........................................
Wood Thrush - Spider Web ............................................
Northern Flicker - Northern Flicker, Highway 2 ........
Red-winged Blackbird - I Declare It Spring .................
Dark-eyed Junco - The Illness of Windows ..................
Northern Cardinal - Grandma Martyn .........................
Birds of the Western United States
Snow Goose - Progress ........................................................
Trumpeter Swan - Mythology Timeline ...........................
Ruffed Grouse - Suce Creek Symphony ...........................
Common Merganser - Glacier Park Toponymy ..............
Greater Prairie Chicken - Driving 212 ...............................
Western Grebe - Snowbound .............................................
Wild Turkey - Thompson Pass ..........................................
American White Pelican - Meanwhile ..............................
Golden Eagle - Brackett Creek ............................................
Sandhill Crane - Autumn ....................................................
Spotted Sandpiper - Today's Business ..............................
Western Gull - 100 Highways .............................................
"Railroad" Dove - Railroad Doves ....................................
Rock Dove - Domestic Feral ................................................
Eurasian Collared Dove - Poem for Yusuf Eradam ........
Pileated Woodpecker - The Hands of My Father ............
Great Horned Owl - Elegy ..................................................
Rufous Hummingbird - Strangers .....................................
Gila Woodpecker - No Comment ......................................
Cordilleran Flycatcher - 25 Bears .......................................
Black-billed Magpie - Writing at Grizfork Studio ...........
American Kestrel - Kestrel ..................................................
Mexican Jay - Mexican, Unknown .....................................
American Crow - Hotel Window: Belgrade, Montana ...
Northern Raven - Spinning .................................................
Mountain Chickadee - Old Chico, Morning ....................
Mountain Bluebird - Phases of the Moon
During the Pine Creek Fire .......
Chestnut-backed Chickadee - Dance Hall ........................
American Robin - March 12, Paradise Valley ..................
Western Meadowlark - After the Storm ...........................
Birds of Mexico and Central America
Brown Pelican - Sian Ka'an ....................................................
Yellow-crowned Night Heron - Monkey River .................
Magnificent Frigatebird - Mise-en-Scene ............................
Garden Emerald - Garden Emerald, Isla Taboga ...............
Common Ground Dove - La Tortolita Comun ....................
White-winged Dove - La Paloma Aliblanca ...........................
Amazon Kingfisher - Tapestry ..............................................
Fiery-billed Aracari - This Poem is a Bowl of Water ........
Sulphur-winged Parakeet - Any Other Hammer ..............
Northern Crested Caracara - 43 Students ............................
Great-tailed Grackle - New Year's Eve at the
Swinging Armadillo ......................
Birds of Europe
Mute Swan - Dulce et Decorum, Revisited ............................
Black-headed Gull - Visitation ..............................................
Great Crested Grebe - Shadow Wall ....................................
Greater Flamingo - A Tour of the Wines of
the Camargue .................................
Common Wood Pigeon - Chant ...........................................
Common Moorhen - "Raft of the Medusa" ........................
Western Jackdaw - Wrong Everything ................................
Carrion Crow - "Wheatfield with Crows" ..........................
Extinct Birds
Passenger Pigeon - Farm Work ............................................
Current Life List/Index ..........................................................
Acknowledgments ...................................................................
Author's Note
Birds of the Eastern United States
Canada Goose - The Things We've Lost .......................
Brown Pelican - Carbon ...................................................
Common Loon - Loon Point ...........................................
Great Blue Heron - Another Blue ...................................
Double-crested Cormorant - Mortality .........................
Killdeer - Murder of the Stag ..........................................
Anhinga - In Excelsis Deo ..................................................
Bald Eagle - My Bones ......................................................
Mourning Dove - Distances ............................................
Ring-billed Gull - Dreams ... Odd .................................
American Herring Gull - Tawas Point, Earlier ............
Common Nighthawk - Religion .....................................
Great Horned Owl - Messenger .....................................
Eastern Screech Owl - Moonflower ...............................
Blue Jay - No Bird: Memory in Translation ..................
American Crow - Linguistics ..........................................
Northern Raven - Raven Wind ......................................
House Sparrow - What to Pray For ...............................
European Starling - Mortimer ........................................
Wood Thrush - Spider Web ............................................
Northern Flicker - Northern Flicker, Highway 2 ........
Red-winged Blackbird - I Declare It Spring .................
Dark-eyed Junco - The Illness of Windows ..................
Northern Cardinal - Grandma Martyn .........................
Birds of the Western United States
Snow Goose - Progress ........................................................
Trumpeter Swan - Mythology Timeline ...........................
Ruffed Grouse - Suce Creek Symphony ...........................
Common Merganser - Glacier Park Toponymy ..............
Greater Prairie Chicken - Driving 212 ...............................
Western Grebe - Snowbound .............................................
Wild Turkey - Thompson Pass ..........................................
American White Pelican - Meanwhile ..............................
Golden Eagle - Brackett Creek ............................................
Sandhill Crane - Autumn ....................................................
Spotted Sandpiper - Today's Business ..............................
Western Gull - 100 Highways .............................................
"Railroad" Dove - Railroad Doves ....................................
Rock Dove - Domestic Feral ................................................
Eurasian Collared Dove - Poem for Yusuf Eradam ........
Pileated Woodpecker - The Hands of My Father ............
Great Horned Owl - Elegy ..................................................
Rufous Hummingbird - Strangers .....................................
Gila Woodpecker - No Comment ......................................
Cordilleran Flycatcher - 25 Bears .......................................
Black-billed Magpie - Writing at Grizfork Studio ...........
American Kestrel - Kestrel ..................................................
Mexican Jay - Mexican, Unknown .....................................
American Crow - Hotel Window: Belgrade, Montana ...
Northern Raven - Spinning .................................................
Mountain Chickadee - Old Chico, Morning ....................
Mountain Bluebird - Phases of the Moon
During the Pine Creek Fire .......
Chestnut-backed Chickadee - Dance Hall ........................
American Robin - March 12, Paradise Valley ..................
Western Meadowlark - After the Storm ...........................
Birds of Mexico and Central America
Brown Pelican - Sian Ka'an ....................................................
Yellow-crowned Night Heron - Monkey River .................
Magnificent Frigatebird - Mise-en-Scene ............................
Garden Emerald - Garden Emerald, Isla Taboga ...............
Common Ground Dove - La Tortolita Comun ....................
White-winged Dove - La Paloma Aliblanca ...........................
Amazon Kingfisher - Tapestry ..............................................
Fiery-billed Aracari - This Poem is a Bowl of Water ........
Sulphur-winged Parakeet - Any Other Hammer ..............
Northern Crested Caracara - 43 Students ............................
Great-tailed Grackle - New Year's Eve at the
Swinging Armadillo ......................
Birds of Europe
Mute Swan - Dulce et Decorum, Revisited ............................
Black-headed Gull - Visitation ..............................................
Great Crested Grebe - Shadow Wall ....................................
Greater Flamingo - A Tour of the Wines of
the Camargue .................................
Common Wood Pigeon - Chant ...........................................
Common Moorhen - "Raft of the Medusa" ........................
Western Jackdaw - Wrong Everything ................................
Carrion Crow - "Wheatfield with Crows" ..........................
Extinct Birds
Passenger Pigeon - Farm Work ............................................
Current Life List/Index ..........................................................
Acknowledgments ...................................................................