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Bird Light
"Here is an exquisite collection of lyrical and imagistic poems firmly rooted in the natural world. But Elizabeth Cohen's poems are also rooted in the human, referring in an oblique way to loss and sorrow, joy and love. This is truly a beautiful book about survival and the way the natural world helps to heal us." —Maria Mazziotti, Gillan American Book Award Winner
"One of the few things as great as watching birds is watching birds through the eyes of a masterful poet. Elizabeth Cohen is just that--her craft so fine and so smooth that I read one of the poems twice before realizing it was a villanelle. Combine this meticulous, honed craft with the abandon and whimsy of a keen, playful intellect, and you have verse that sings and dips and soars as gracefully and naturally as a bird in flight. Bird Light is a book that "licks the air," "flings, madly, like a shot punctuation mark," and 'leaps branches and telephone wires to ride the air to an invisible height.' Here is a poetic and avian treasure." —Melissa Studdard, author of I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast and Six Weeks to Yehidah
"Bird Light is a bird phenomenology. Birds are embodiments of time or disembodiments of time. They are characters that are funny and annoying, loyal and everything beautiful, charming and irresistible, sad and even scary. They are surprising joy, new life, and they disappear into another world as our beloved dead do. Elizabeth Cohen's poetry is a phenomenon, a witty consciousness, all that birds are and all that they carry us beyond." —Aliki Barnstone, Poet Laureate of Missouri, author of Blue Earth, Wild With It and Dwelling
"These poems fluidly move between memory and a present experience of time, place, love, loss, and death while gently reminding readers that sophisticated treatment of these large ideas is a treasure to be sought, a pleasure that Cohen seeks and shares with us. Here are poems full of grace and quiet power." —Catherine Daly, author of Locket and To Delete and Instruct
"Elizabeth Cohen's Bird Light is a wonder and a delight, a kind of autobiography in birds, filled with exuberance and driven by an intimate, passionate, quirky engagement with the world." —Cecilia Woloch, NEA Fellow and author of Carpathia, Late, Sacrifice, Earth and other works
"Elizabeth Cohen reminds me of Anne Porter, Jimmy Schuyler, Joe Stroud, Gary Snyder, and Mary Oliver (a mighty visionary company, I think). She knows not only the names of living things; she knows what it means to live. A poetic field-guide to the poet's world, Bird Light is a book whose whole keeps the reader "in the middle of beautiful/in the middle of glorious."" —Mark Statman, author of A Map of the Winds, That Train Again, and other works
"One of the few things as great as watching birds is watching birds through the eyes of a masterful poet. Elizabeth Cohen is just that--her craft so fine and so smooth that I read one of the poems twice before realizing it was a villanelle. Combine this meticulous, honed craft with the abandon and whimsy of a keen, playful intellect, and you have verse that sings and dips and soars as gracefully and naturally as a bird in flight. Bird Light is a book that "licks the air," "flings, madly, like a shot punctuation mark," and 'leaps branches and telephone wires to ride the air to an invisible height.' Here is a poetic and avian treasure." —Melissa Studdard, author of I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast and Six Weeks to Yehidah
"Bird Light is a bird phenomenology. Birds are embodiments of time or disembodiments of time. They are characters that are funny and annoying, loyal and everything beautiful, charming and irresistible, sad and even scary. They are surprising joy, new life, and they disappear into another world as our beloved dead do. Elizabeth Cohen's poetry is a phenomenon, a witty consciousness, all that birds are and all that they carry us beyond." —Aliki Barnstone, Poet Laureate of Missouri, author of Blue Earth, Wild With It and Dwelling
"These poems fluidly move between memory and a present experience of time, place, love, loss, and death while gently reminding readers that sophisticated treatment of these large ideas is a treasure to be sought, a pleasure that Cohen seeks and shares with us. Here are poems full of grace and quiet power." —Catherine Daly, author of Locket and To Delete and Instruct
"Elizabeth Cohen's Bird Light is a wonder and a delight, a kind of autobiography in birds, filled with exuberance and driven by an intimate, passionate, quirky engagement with the world." —Cecilia Woloch, NEA Fellow and author of Carpathia, Late, Sacrifice, Earth and other works
"Elizabeth Cohen reminds me of Anne Porter, Jimmy Schuyler, Joe Stroud, Gary Snyder, and Mary Oliver (a mighty visionary company, I think). She knows not only the names of living things; she knows what it means to live. A poetic field-guide to the poet's world, Bird Light is a book whose whole keeps the reader "in the middle of beautiful/in the middle of glorious."" —Mark Statman, author of A Map of the Winds, That Train Again, and other works
116 pages, Paperback
First published October 14, 2016
5 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Cohen
22 books25 followersElizabeth Cohen is an Assistant Professor of English at SUNY Plattsburgh, where she serves as the fiction editor for the Saranac Review. Her memoir, The Family on Beartown Road (Random House, 2003), was a New York Times Notable Book, and her articles, stories, and poetry have appeared in SELF, MORE, Newsweek, People, New York Times Magazine, Salon, Tablet, and the Yale Review, among other publications.
She lives in Plattsburgh, New York, with her daughter, Ava and way, way too many cats.
She lives in Plattsburgh, New York, with her daughter, Ava and way, way too many cats.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 26, 2017
Bird Light is a collection of lyrical meditations on birds and things like birds, like life. The poems are by Elizabeth Cohen, whose collection of short stories, Hypothetical Girl, I reviewed last year. The lovely line drawings are by Aliki Barnstone, a woman of many gifts. The combination of Elizabeth's poetry and Aliki's drawings make Bird Light a transporting, transformative experience.
I am a bird lover, particularly of raptors, and so a poem like "The Red Tailed Hawks of Colesville New York" moved me with its simple play of joy and sadness: joy of seeing a couple of hawks christened Spunk and Spike, their closeness and playfulness; the sadness when one day only one is sighted and then, later, neither.
Intermingled with poems about peacocks, red-tailed hawks, bluejays, owls, cranes, red-crested flickers, and many other birds, are poems that read like mini-memoirs, a life spent and described by area codes and zip codes, from being a daughter to having a daughter. I am transported, almost literally it seems, from the red dust and mesas of the southwest to the Flickers and grackles of the northeast.
In particular, I felt transformed by the utter beauty and vulnerability of "Bluebird": a tattoo of a bluebird to mark a broken heart at 22, except the tattoo is slightly off being on the right breast and not directly on the heart. And yet,
It hovered over the death beds of each of my parents,
And for nine months it glided over the soft,
unconnected bones of my daughter's head.
Bluebirds are very special to me, being the favorite bird of my deceased stepfather and the favorite bird of his son who died too young at 33 from cancer and who sighted a bluebird once from his window and told his father that God must have wanted to keep him alive a little longer just to see the bluebird. Now I can't see a bluebird without saying a little prayer for Ken and Tim. And this poem, "Bluebird," by Elizabeth adds to that pleasant pang I get whenever a bluebird flies in front of me.
The title poem, "Bird Light," makes its appearance almost halfway through the volume. She starts with,
When my marriage was over
the birds began
and I think to myself that she must have been writing these poems all along, probably refining them a little bit each time until there was nothing left to add or take away, until they were contained and perfect.
One thing ends inside your life
and there is an opening for something new
Your eyes start over, widen toward a periphery
I cling to these three lines and think, this is Bird Light, the "something new" that comes when you allow an opening. Studying birds, sorting your life by area codes and zip codes, a pattern seems to emerge suggesting that everything goes on as it should, or as it will.
I am a bird lover, particularly of raptors, and so a poem like "The Red Tailed Hawks of Colesville New York" moved me with its simple play of joy and sadness: joy of seeing a couple of hawks christened Spunk and Spike, their closeness and playfulness; the sadness when one day only one is sighted and then, later, neither.
Intermingled with poems about peacocks, red-tailed hawks, bluejays, owls, cranes, red-crested flickers, and many other birds, are poems that read like mini-memoirs, a life spent and described by area codes and zip codes, from being a daughter to having a daughter. I am transported, almost literally it seems, from the red dust and mesas of the southwest to the Flickers and grackles of the northeast.
In particular, I felt transformed by the utter beauty and vulnerability of "Bluebird": a tattoo of a bluebird to mark a broken heart at 22, except the tattoo is slightly off being on the right breast and not directly on the heart. And yet,
It hovered over the death beds of each of my parents,
And for nine months it glided over the soft,
unconnected bones of my daughter's head.
Bluebirds are very special to me, being the favorite bird of my deceased stepfather and the favorite bird of his son who died too young at 33 from cancer and who sighted a bluebird once from his window and told his father that God must have wanted to keep him alive a little longer just to see the bluebird. Now I can't see a bluebird without saying a little prayer for Ken and Tim. And this poem, "Bluebird," by Elizabeth adds to that pleasant pang I get whenever a bluebird flies in front of me.
The title poem, "Bird Light," makes its appearance almost halfway through the volume. She starts with,
When my marriage was over
the birds began
and I think to myself that she must have been writing these poems all along, probably refining them a little bit each time until there was nothing left to add or take away, until they were contained and perfect.
One thing ends inside your life
and there is an opening for something new
Your eyes start over, widen toward a periphery
I cling to these three lines and think, this is Bird Light, the "something new" that comes when you allow an opening. Studying birds, sorting your life by area codes and zip codes, a pattern seems to emerge suggesting that everything goes on as it should, or as it will.
Displaying 1 of 1 review