{"product_id":"on-wings-of-song-isbn-9780375407499","title":"On Wings of Song","description":"From backyard to barnyard, from hawks to hummingbirds, from pelicans to peacocks, from Coleridge's albatross to Keats's nightingale to Poe's raven-all manner of feathered beings, the inspiration for poetic flights of fancy through the ages, are gathered together in this delightful volume. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSome of the winged treasures: Emily Dickinson on the jay; Gertrude Stein on pigeons; Seamus Heaney on turkeys; Tennyson on the eagle; Spenser on the merry cuckoo; Amy Clampitt on the whippoorwill; Po Chü-i on cranes; John Updike on seagulls; W.S. Merwin on the duck; Elizabeth Bishop on the sandpiper; Rilke on flamingoes; Margaret Atwood on vultures; the Bible on the ostrich; Sylvia Plath on the owl; Melville on the hawk; Yeats on wild swans; Virgil on the harpies; Thomas Hardy on the darkling thrush; and Wallace Stevens on thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird.J. D. McClatchy is the author of five collections of poems: \u003cb\u003eScenes From Another Life, Stars Principal, The Rest of the Way, Ten Commandments,\u003c\/b\u003e and \u003cb\u003eHazmat\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e.\u003c\/i\u003e He has also written two books of essays: \u003cb\u003eWhite Paper\u003c\/b\u003e and \u003cb\u003eTwenty Questions\u003c\/b\u003e. He has edited many other books, including \u003cb\u003eThe Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry, Poets on Painters\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e,\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003cb\u003eHorace: The Odes\u003c\/b\u003e. In addition, he edits The Voice of the Poet series for Random House AudioBooks, and has written seven opera libretti. He is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has taught at Princeton, UCLA, and Johns Hopkins, and is now a professor at Yale, where since 1991 he has edited The Yale Review. He lives in Stonington, Connecticut.\u003cb\u003e\"Seagulls\"\u003cbr\u003eby John Updike\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA gull, up close,\u003cbr\u003elooks surprisingly stuffed.\u003cbr\u003eHis fluffy chest seems filled\u003cbr\u003ewith an inexpensive taxidermist's material\u003cbr\u003erather lumpily inserted. The legs,\u003cbr\u003eunbent, are childish crayon strokes--\u003cbr\u003etoo simple to be workable.\u003cbr\u003eAnd even the feather-markings,\u003cbr\u003ewhose intricate symmetry is the usual glory of birds,\u003cbr\u003eare in the gull slovenly,\u003cbr\u003eas if God makes them too many\u003cbr\u003eto make them very well.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAre they intelligent?\u003cbr\u003eWe imagine so, because they are ugly.\u003cbr\u003eThe sardonic one-eyed profile, slightly cross,\u003cbr\u003ethe narrow, ectomorphic head, badly combed,\u003cbr\u003ethe wide and nervous and well-muscled rump\u003cbr\u003eall suggest deskwork: shipping rates\u003cbr\u003eby day, Schopenhauer \u003cbr\u003eby night, and endless coffee.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt that hour on the beach\u003cbr\u003ewhen the flies begin biting in the renewed coolness\u003cbr\u003eand the backsliding skin of the after-surf\u003cbr\u003ereflects a pink shimmer before being blotted,\u003cbr\u003ethe gulls stand around in the dimpled sand\u003cbr\u003elike those melancholy European crowds\u003cbr\u003ethat gather in cobbled public squares in the wake\u003cbr\u003eof assassinations and invasions,\u003cbr\u003eheads cocked to hear the latest radio reports.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is also this hour when plump young couples\u003cbr\u003ewalk down to the water, bumping together, \u003cbr\u003eand stand thigh-deep in the rhythmic glass.\u003cbr\u003eThen they walk back toward the car,\u003cbr\u003etugging as if at a secret between them\u003cbr\u003ebut which neither quite knows--\u003cbr\u003ewalk capricious paths through the scattering gulls,\u003cbr\u003eas in some mythologies\u003cbr\u003ebeautiful gods stroll unconcerned\u003cbr\u003eamong our mortal apprehensions.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eJohn Updike on \"Seagulls\":\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eMy distinct memory is that I was pondering gulls while lying on Crane Beach in Ipswich when the first stanza came over me in a spasm of inspiration. Penless and paperless, I ran to the site of a recent beach fire and wrote in charcoal on a large piece of unburned driftwood. Then I cumbersomely carried my improvised tablet home. It must have been late in the beach season, and my final stanzas slow to ripen, for the poem's completion is dated early December. \u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Everyman's Library","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300942336229,"sku":"NP9780375407499","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780375407499.jpg?v=1767734134","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/on-wings-of-song-isbn-9780375407499","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}