A Bird-while. In a natural chronometer, a Bird-while may be admitted as
one of the metres, since the space most of the wild birds will allow you
to make your observations on them when they alight near you in the
woods, is a pretty equal and familiar measure (Ralph Waldo Emerson's
Journal, 1838). Without becoming didactic or pedantic about the
spiritual metaphor hidden in the concept of the bird-while, Keith
Taylor's collection evokes certain Eastern meditative poets who often
wrote in an aphoristic style of the spirit or the mind mirroring
specific aspects of the natural world.
The Bird-while is a collection of forty-nine poems that meditate on
the nature-both human and non-human-that surrounds us daily. Taylor is
in the company of naturalist poets such as Gary Snyder and Mary
Oliver-poets who often drew from an Emersonian sensibility to create art
that awakens the mind to its corresponding truths in the natural world.
The book ranges from the longer poem to the eight line, unrhymed stanza
similar to that of the T'ang poet Han-Shan. And without section breaks
to reinforce the passing of time, the collection creates greater
fluidity of movement from one poem to the next, as if there is no
beginning or end, only an eternal moment that is suspended on the page.
Tom Pohrt's original illustrations are scattered throughout the text,
adding a stunning visual element to the already vivid language. The book
moves from the author's travel accounts to the destruction of the
natural world, even species extinction, to more hopeful poems of
survival and the return of wildness. The natural rhythm is at times
marred by the disturbances of the twenty-first century that come blaring
into these meditations, as when a National Guard jet rumbles over the
treeline upsetting a hummingbird, and yet, even the hummingbird is able
to regain its balance and continue as before. At its core, Taylor's
collection is a reminder of Emerson's idea that natural facts are
symbols of spiritual facts.
These well-crafted poems will be easily accessible to any literary
audience, with a more particular attraction to readers of contemporary
poetry sensitive to the marriage of an Eastern sensibility with
contemporary American settings and scenes.
