Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $9.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Whistling of Birds
    A Whistling of Birds
    A Whistling of Birds
    Ebook150 pages46 minutes

    A Whistling of Birds

    By Isobel Dixon and Douglas Robertson

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Elizabeth Bishop's hawkweed, John Berryman's hummingbirds, Ted Hughes's burnt fox – the birds, beasts and flowers of Isobel Dixon's new collection are at times kin to D.H. Lawrence, whose essay 'Whistling of Birds' lends this book its name, though each poem here is its own vivid testament to the natural world, and our often troubled and troubling place in it. Lyrical, vigorous, inventive, A Whistling of Birds is at times in conversation with Lawrence's iconic collection, Birds, Beasts and Flowers, but also ranges widely through the worlds of other writers and makers – from the Venerable Bede to Emily Dickinson, Georgia O'Keeffe to Glenn Gould, and a wealth of other connections closely examined and delicately drawn. With its resonant elegies and notes of celebration, this is a collection that flexes, hums and brims with energy, yet surely draws you in to its quiet, reflective heart.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNine Arches Press
    Release dateJun 22, 2023
    ISBN9781913437732
    A Whistling of Birds
    Author

    Isobel Dixon

    Isobel Dixon's debut, Weather Eye, won the Olive Schreiner Prize. Her further collections are A Fold in the Map, Bearings and The Tempest Prognosticator, which J.M. Coetzee described as ‘a virtuoso collection’. Mariscat published her pamphlet The Leonids, and Nine Arches publish A Whistling of Birds in June 2023. She co-wrote and performed in the Titanic centenary show The Debris Field (with Simon Barraclough and Chris McCabe) and has worked with composers, filmmakers and artists.

    Read more from Isobel Dixon

    Related to A Whistling of Birds

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Same River Twice

      Feb 3, 2022

      Same River Twice
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Ducks Of Home

      Sep 19, 2022

      The Ducks Of Home
      7 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Jul 1, 2024

      A stick buried in grass is fabulous. Who knows what this means? The sky isa basket woven from shadows more subtle than shadows of the earth. Thisis to say, things are done quietly in the sky sometimes, too. You can partthe ferns and peer into clearin

      3 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Jun 3, 2024

      Driving south, I cross it—the intangible line beyond which bougainvillea grows, beyond which the land is flagrant. It’s not exact; there is no sign as with a border, so everybody knows. It doesn’t waft to me; it’s not even fragrant. When I see the bu

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Storytellers

      Apr 28, 2023

      The Storytellers
      3 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Jan 1, 2021

      I learned the world through the bottoms of my feet, barein the creeks of summer, stepping on pebbles, the squidgeof moss between my toes. On hot asphalt, the hop and skipover cracks, feet already toughened by bramble, dirt, the pricklyground of pine

      4 min read

    • Article

      New Nature Writer Of The Year 2021 Runner-up

      Sep 23, 2021

      Former local government worker Mike is a keen walker and wildlife enthusiast, based in North Yorkshire. Prize judge Stephen Moss praised his entry as: “A delightful recollection of a long-ago boyhood, written with imagination and a real sense of the

      3 min read

    • Article

      Leaf Season

      Sep 16, 2024

      Leaf Season
      14 min read

    • Article

      Overshadowed

      Feb 7, 2023

      Overshadowed
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Unicorn

      Sep 16, 2024

      The Unicorn
      5 min read

    • Article

      WINNERS MARCH 2023 POETRY CONTEST See the Sea

      Jul 1, 2023

      Arlo Carraher, age 8Sebastopol, CA Children of the Sea The waves crashthe sun soarsseagulls peckat the rocky shores Under the rockscrabs scuttle and slidemaking their homesclose to the tide Schools of fishswim to and frotheir colors give the watera

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Otter

      Jun 15, 2024

      The Otter
      6 min read

    • Article

      A Book of Hours

      Nov 25, 2022

      A Book of Hours
      12 min read

    • Article

      from BLACK PASTORAL

      Nov 1, 2023

      somewheres, some lifetimes ago I have run so far, so long.There is nowhere I haven’t beenBut here, in this field, a bodyLength from the ragged brinkThat gives way to forest.I collapsed here, the thin, hard slipOf me whittled at both ends.I want badly

      4 min read

    • Article

      Trouble In Paradise—other Adirondack Bloodsuckers

      Apr 18, 2024

      I love that I have come back to the Adirondacks, now with a place of my own at the edge of the wilderness. I grew up and attended high school not far from here, in the then “smallest incorporated village in New York State,” Galway, about two hours fr

      4 min read

    • Article

      Gone Fishing…

      Jun 10, 2021

      Gone Fishing…
      3 min read

    • Article

      Until The Sea Closed Over Us And The Light Was Gone

      Jul 1, 2020

      —Dante, Canto XXVI But if the truth is dreamed of toward the morning—El Paso Although it was really last summer’s song,all this summer Despacito played on as slower then I turned myself to gazeupon Juarez. The summer everything hurts my eyes, a dozen

      6 min read

    • Article

      Certain Uncertain

      Sep 17, 2024

      Certain Uncertain
      9 min read

    • Article

      Certain Uncertain

      Sep 17, 2024

      Certain Uncertain
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Fenland redoubt

      Oct 5, 2022

      The Fenland redoubt
      4 min read

    • Article

      Lay Of The Land

      Aug 27, 2021

      TARA K. SHEPERSKY YOU WOULDN’T know how to get down here without someone to point out the path. You wouldn’t know there was a public beach at all. From the road, signs are few. An eclectic scatter of homes, distorted wave-speak rumbling from thick ra

      17 min read

    • Article

      Kamau Brathwaite

      Dec 15, 2019

      for angeliQue brathwaite this living liqurid mmemorydeep tidal embankment under the waterbreathes through the sea’s leaves like lamplight dreams itself a green island lizardlong before you was bornbranches of blue into tunes of blue crystalsoftness o

      2 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Jul 1, 2020

      I look to the tree line & already the leavesare ripping themselves away from their mothers. It is only August but I am already rising earlyfor a crisp moon, smoking in the rare chill of a shaded patio. My breasts have begun pickling,the fat rounds pr

      2 min read

    • Article

      Six Poems

      Feb 28, 2023

      Dear C, At first Virgil’s poem is quite dull; equivocalnames of products at The Container Store: Elfa White Medium Drawer, Mesh NarrowRolling Cart (Medium Solution), Narrow Classic Mesh Box and the number of pirouetting starseach product attained. An

      5 min read

    • Article

      You Don’t Know Teal You Try

      Feb 22, 2023

      You Don’t Know Teal You Try
      5 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Sep 1, 2022

      I whooshedthrough the party. I grewa set of invisible hands. I was flower girlto the Commonwealth where lovers danced a dancecalled the snowdrift. Sugar mapleshelicoptered samarasin my glass. The dogs slackenedin their webs of shade. A democracyof cl

      2 min read

    • Article

      In The Thick Of It

      Feb 23, 2022

      In The Thick Of It
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Best Tonic There Is

      Oct 7, 2020

      The Best Tonic There Is
      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Whistling of Birds

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      A Whistling of Birds - Isobel Dixon

      cover.jpg

      A Whistling of Birds

      Also by Isobel Dixon

      Weather Eye

      A Fold in the Map

      The Tempest Prognosticator

      The Debris Field

      (with Simon Barraclough and Chris McCabe)

      Bearings

      The Leonids

      img1.jpg

      A Whistling of Birds

      Isobel Dixon

      ISBN: 978-1-913437-72-5

      eISBN: 978-1-913437-73-2

      Copyright © Isobel Dixon, 2023.

      All illustrations copyright © Douglas Robertson, 2023.

      Quotations from the work of D.H. Lawrence are reproduced by permission of Paper Lion Ltd, The Estate of Frieda Lawrence Ravagli and Cambridge University Press.

      All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, recorded or mechanical, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

      Isobel Dixon has asserted her right under Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

      First published June 2023 by:

      Nine Arches Press

      Unit 14, Sir Frank Whittle Business Centre,

      Great Central Way, Rugby.

      CV21 3XH

      United Kingdom

      www.ninearchespress.com

      Printed on recycled paper by Imprint Digital, United Kingdom.

      Nine Arches Press is supported using public funding by Arts Council England.

      img2.jpg

      In Memory of Gus Ferguson

      1 July 1940 – 27 December 2020

      &

      for all those who love the creatures

      especially Jan

      Contents

      Larch Fog

      The Fence

      In Nature

      Whereas at Venice

      The Tempest

      Whalefall

      Wreckfish

      Fantasía for Small Octopus Orchestra

      Tirrick

      River Mother

      After the Dive

      the bats

      The Snakes

      the bees

      The Guests

      Snake in the dam

      Dung Beetle

      Myrmeleon

      Man

      the seahorse always breaks my heart

      Before the Storm

      Snakelore

      i. Warnings at Bedtime

      ii. Snapshots

      iii. Advice to the Unwary Follower

      Cape Indifference

      Dead Heron, Burnt Fox

      Kirstenbosch

      Rosa x damascena

      ç

      Rainfall on Krabi Seen from Koh Yao Noi

      Rosenberg’s Larks

      Hum

      A Missionary in Neon Green

      How the Light Filtered Through the Leaves

      The Pass of the Adders

      On First Spotting a Snake’s Head Fritillary

      Sweet Violet

      March

      Seasonal

      Age of Blossom

      This, Evensong

      That Coyote Moment

      Utterance

      The Secret Peach

      Self-Portrait in Sweet Woodruff

      Viper’s Bugloss

      My Sweet Fiorenza

      Everywhere, Apricots

      Threshold

      The Spiders of Ragusa

      Golden Delicious

      In Search of the Evangelistic Beasts

      The Sun, Like Trumpets Every Morning

      Hummingbird ~

      Gentians for Carole

      The Greensward

      Conversations

      i. Hawkweed Burning

      ii. Our Doubtful Art

      iii. Dear Engraver

      October Moon

      Also, Hummingbirds

      Matsephe’s Dance

      Being, Here

      Lo Scoiattolo

      & a P.S. for D.H.L.

      The Woburn Robin

      Bede’s Sparrow

      Table of Illustrations

      Notes

      Acknowledgements and Thanks

      About the author and this book

      img3.jpg

      Larch Fog

      How the twigs make a fog

      between the trunks. A fog

      of larchwood. Misty arch

      of twig, sap, bark.

      Sometimes it seems you write,

      Bert, about the lives of people

      just to shape the landscape

      that you move them in.

      Lovers and trespassers

      in the haze of exploration –

      sun-seared beach-daze; blissful

      tree-blessed, love-hate

      leaf-enfolding light and shade.

      All that your eye seeks,

      probes and proves and names –

      your generous hoard of living names –

      is not just so much backdrop,

      but the kernel and the juice of it.

      Pheasant, gentian, campion –

      each ink-stroke makes them, now,

      anew, again, when they and we are gone –

      catkin, stitchwort, celandine,

      haystack, lime tree, violet,

      the cyclamens, the burning sun.

      For D.H. Lawrence

      The Fence

      Break into blossom, break.

      What is the point of perfect surfaces,

      the aluminium shine of life,

      the lacquer glaze of soft-close doors.

      Step from the car and shake your limbs out,

      off of the tar, away from ticking metal

      cooling down, over the crunch of gravel

      to the fence, just a wavering stripe, times three,

      of wire. No

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1