Tag Archive for #QuarantineLife

A Spicing of Birds

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A Spicing of Birds is a unique and beautifully illustrated anthology, pairing poems from one of America’s most revered poets with evocative classic ornithological art from sources including Mark Catesby, John James Audubon, Alexander Wilson, Robert Ridgway, Louis Agassiz Fuertes, and Cordelia Stanwood. Emily Dickinson is known for her posthumous collection of unconventional work that played with unusual punctuation and capitalization. Her unique voice is known among many, but lesser-known is her great love of birds—in her collected poems, birds are mentioned 222 times, sometimes as the core inspiration of the poem. This book contains thirty-seven of Dickinson’s poems featuring birds common to New England. Many lesser-known poems are brought to light, renewing our appreciation for Dickinson’s work.

Even today, we find Emily Dickinson to be elusive and enigmatic. in 1998, Paris Press published Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson’s Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson, edited by Ellen Louise Hart and Martha Nell Smith, and now available through Wesleyan. The book delves into another underdeveloped facet of Dickinson’s life—her queerness. Including selections of letters from Dickinson’s thirty-six year correspondence with sister-in-law and romantic interest Susan Huntington, Hart and Smith dispel the common depiction of Dickinson as a lonely spinster, revealing letters that Smith calls “pretty sexy.” Smith also pointedly observes the gendered way in which Dickinson is often portrayed as dark and lonely despite this romantic correspondence, saying, “I found myself thinking: If all of this was sent to any man in Dickinson’s life, there wouldn’t be any kind of argument about who was the love of her life.”  The book inspired Wild Nights With Emily, a major motion picture, starring Molly Shannon, that candidly explores Dickinson’s fluid sexuality.

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Dickinson’s letters continue to be a rich source of access to her intensely private life. In A Spicing of Birds, the editors’ introduction draws extensively from Dickinson’s letters, providing fascinating insights into her relationship with birds. Her fascination with, and inspiration from, birds are given the same amount of importance in this book as her romantic yearnings are in previous publications. The illustrations, by late 18th century to early 20th century artists, are often so apt as to seem to have been created with the poems in mind. The editors also discuss the development and growth of birding in the nineteenth century as well as the evolution of field guides and early conservation efforts. Brief biographies of the artists are included in an appendix. A Spicing of Birds is an eloquent tribute to the special place held by birds in our lives and imaginations, adding to the continuing collaborative biography of one of the most important American poets.

 

“1177”

A prompt—executive Bird is the Jay—
Bold as a Bailiff’s Hymn—
Brittle and Brief in quality—
Warrant in every line—
Sitting a Bough like a Brigadier
Confident and straight—
Much is the mien of him in March
As a Magistrate—

 

Announcing “BodyStories,” “Body and Earth,” and “The Place of Dance”

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“Olsen finds her fresh edge with a holistic vision with which to dance, make dances and move through life.”
—Desirée Dunbar, Dance International Magazine

Wesleyan University Press is excited about keeping her trilogy of practical work books in print, for dancers, choreographers, and other movement artists. Or for anybody who wishes to explore movement in a creative way.

For an introduction to Andrea Olsen’s work, visit her Body and Earth website, where you will find seven movement explorations  developed with her colleague Caryn McHose.

Originally published by the University Press of New England in 1998, BodyStories: A Guide to Experiential Anatomy is a book that engages our interest in human anatomy. Thirty-one days of learning sessions heighten awareness about each bone and body system and provide self-guided studies. The book draws on Ms. Olsen’s thirty years as a dancer and teacher of anatomy to show how our attitudes and approaches to our body affect us day to day. Amusing and insightful personal stories enliven the text and provide ways of working with the body for efficiency and for healing. BodyStories is used as a primary text in college dance departments, massage schools, and yoga training programs internationally. Now, you can use the book to guide you in your home studies.

Olsen’s second book, Body and Earth: An Experiential Guide was also published by the University Press of New England, in 2002. The book is not only a lesson plan, it is also an investigation. Arranged as a 31-day program, the book offer a wealth of scientific information and exercises for exploring the body and connecting with place. Illustrations and other art illuminate each chapter’s themes, and Olsen’s meditations and reflections connect the topics to her personal history and experience. Olsen insists that neither body nor landscape are separate from our fundamental selves, but in a culture which views the body as a mechanism to be trained and the landscape as a resource to be exploited, we need to learn again to see their fundamental wholeness and interconnection. Through hard data, reflection, exercises, and inspiration, Body and Earth offers a guide to responsible stewardship of both our bodies and the planet.

The Place of Dance: A Somatic Guide to Dancing and Dance Making, first published by Wesleyan University Press in 2014, reminds us that dancing is in our nature, available to all as well as refined for the stage. This workbook integrates experiential anatomy with the process of moving and dancing, with a particular focus on the creative journey involved in choreographing, improvising, and performing for others. Each of the chapters, or “days,” introduces a particular theme and features a dance photograph, information on the topic, movement and writing investigations, personal anecdotes, and studio notes from professional artists and educators for further insight. It is well suited for dancers, or anyone interested in engaging embodied intelligence and living more consciously.

These three books are excellent teaching tools and will help each reader to understand his/her dancing body through somatic work, create a dance, and to create a full journal clarifying aesthetic views on his or her practice. Wesleyan University Press is now keeping all three of Olsen’s volumes in print.

ANDREA OLSEN is professor of dance and faculty member in the Environmental Studies Program at Middlebury College. She is a certified Holden QiGong and Embodyoga instructor, teaching classes and workshops worldwide. She also performs frequently, with current accolades in her piece “Awakening Grace: Six Somatic Tools.” In addition to writing, teaching, and performing, she is also working on a continuing film project with Scotty Hardwig and Caryn McHose entitled Body and Earth: Seven Web-Based Somatic Excursions. 

Caryn McHose is Olsen’s frequent writing collaborator. She has a private practice in somatic movement therapy in Holderness, New Hampshire, and has taught creative movement internationally for more than forty years. She is coauthor, with Kevin Frank, of How Life Moves: Explorations in Meaning and Body Awareness.

 

Aldon Nielsen reads Lorenzo Thomas for Distāntia Reading Series

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In a time of social distancing, virtual connection has become more important than ever. Off Topic Poetics, a non-profit Youtube channel, has taken full advantage of the moment by starting the Distāntia Reading Series. The online video project is described as “an experimentation with intimate social distancing through remote access to poetry.” The channel accepts recordings from poets reading their work in quarantine and posts them to a playlist titled “Distāntia.” The original work, coupled with a video of the poet reading, creates an intimate viewing experience that can help people who feel isolated from human interaction during COVID-19 distancing.

           

“Sprucing Spring up on Larkin Street,” a poem from The Collected Poems of Lorenzo Thomas, was recited by editor Aldon Lynn Nielsen and submitted to the project earlier this week. Lorenzo Thomas (1944−2005) was the youngest member of the Society of Umbra, predecessor of the Black Arts Movement. The Collected Poems of Lorenzo Thomas is the first volume to encompass his entire writing life. His poetry synthesizes New York School and Black Arts aesthetics, heavily influenced by blues and jazz. In a career that spanned decades, Thomas constantly experimented with form and subject, while still writing poetry deeply rooted in the traditions of African American aesthetics. Whether drawing from his experiences during the war in Vietnam, exploring his life in the urban north and the southwest, or recalling his beloved ancestors, Thomas was a lyric innovator. His experimentation is perfect for our current moment of social improvisation in the face of the unknown, reminding us that we can always find new ways to navigate the world around us.

Subscribe to Off Topic Poetics on Youtube to stay updated on the Distāntia Reading Series, and check out The Collected Poems of Lorenzo Thomas to read more like “Sprucing Spring up on Larkin Street” to keep you company during social distancing.