Research Catalog

Details

Description

1. xvi, 105 pages; 22 cm

Summary

1. These poems, beautiful in their simplicity and poignant in the nature of their subject matter, focus on North America creatures judged "endangered" by the U.S. Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
2. Ordered according to moments in the life cycle - birth, juvenile behavior, courtship, mating, feeding and hunting, aging, and death - the poems depict mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, molluscs, crustaceans, insects, and arachnids. Each is accompanied by an illustration of the animal in the wild, and all recreate what is essentially fleeting: the complex beauty of one of nature's creations.
3. Interspersed among the poems are verse fragments depicting the human predicament in a landscape shared with vanishing species.

Subject

1. Endangered species > North America > Poetry
2. Rare animals > North America > Poetry
3. Zoology > North America > Poetry

Contents

1. Because -- In the Presence of Snakes -- In the woods where I am, rain -- Cave Crayfish -- Schaus Swallowtail Butterfly -- Atlantic Ridley Sea Turtle -- As I stand on the sodden moss -- American Crocodile -- Wood Bison -- American Peregrine Falcon -- Where train tracks cross -- Key Deer -- Gray Bat -- Thunder, and the magpies break -- Bald Eagle -- California Brown Pelican -- New Mexican Ridge-Nosed Rattlesnake -- Let any bee fly into the kitchen -- Houston Toad -- American Alligator -- Florida Panther -- Every bookshelf holds your trophies -- Manatee -- Whooping Crane -- Behind the house you dig -- Grizzly Bear -- Roseate Tern -- I have seen you wrestle a fishhook -- Blue Whale -- Sonoran Pronghorn -- Giant Kangaroo Rat -- Now I watch you, intent -- Sockeye Salmon -- Woodland Caribou -- Tooth Cave Spider -- We've walked for hours beside the river -- Northern Swift Fox -- Black-Footed Ferret -- Jaguar -- In the meadow that skirts the mountain -- Utah Prairie Dog --
2. Gray Wolf -- Stopped to study the cows, I find -- Point Arena Mountain Beaver -- Northern Spotted Owl -- Before dawn we board the Jonesport boat -- Hawaiian Monk Seal -- Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse -- Once, I watched a parakeet -- Appalachian Monkeyface Pearly Mussel -- Texas Blind Salamander -- Life marks its equations -- Dusky Seaside Sparrow -- American Burying Beetle -- California Condor.

Owning institution

1. Columbia University Libraries