Book

Bestiary : an anthology of poems about animals / edited by Stephen Mitchell.

Berkeley, Calif. : Frog : Distributed to the Book trade by Publishers Group West, 1996.

xvi, 230 pages ; 24 cm

In Bestiary, Stephen Mitchell has collected animal poems from many ages and many cultures. He includes excerpts from ancient masterpieces like "The Hymn to the Sun" by Pharaoh Amen-hotep IV, The Book of Job, and The Book of Psalms; haiku by Basho, Buson, and Issa; poems by Milton and Smart, Blake and Burns, Whitman and Emily Dickinson, Hardy and Hopkins. And since the animal poem attains its full richness and depth in the twentieth century, he has included extensive selections from its greatest modern masters, Rilke, D.H. Lawrence, Marianne Moore, Ponge, and Neruda, as well as poems by Yeats, Frost, William Carlos Williams, Jeffers, Elizabeth Bishop, and James Wright. This is a book of passionate and humorous encounters with the vibrant world of animals. It is also a book about loving the earth. In our time, when selfishness and greed have placed this whole planet on the endangered species list, we particularly need the vision of our great poets. When we read them, we learn that every creature on earth is a treasure and a delight to the heart that contemplates it with undivided attention.

Animals -- Poetry.

Poetry -- Collections.

Poetry.

Mitchell, Stephen, 1943-

Includes bibliographical references.

From The hymn to the sun / Pharaoh Amen-Hotep IV, a.k.a. Akhenaton (reigned 1379-1362 B.C.E.) -- Do you hunt game for the lioness / The book of Job (9th?-4th? century B.C.E.) -- Psalm 104 / The book of Psalms (8th?-3rd? century B.C.E.) -- Hedgehog / Chu Chen-Po (9th century) -- From Paradise lost / John Milton (1608-1674) -- Selected Haiku / Basho (1644-1694) -- Selected Haiku / Buson (1715-1783) -- From Jubilate Agno [and] From A song to David / Christopher Smart (1722-1771) -- The snail [and] Epitaph on a hare / William Cowper (1731-1800) -- Death of a fly / Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) -- The tyger / William Blake (1757-1827) -- To a mouse / Robert Burns (1759-1796) -- Selected Haiku / Issa (1763-1827).

Cont.): Hares at play [and] The mouse's nest / John Clare (1793-1864) -- To a waterfowl / William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) -- From Song of myself [and] The dalliance of the eagles / Walt Whitman (1819-1892) -- A bird came down the walk -- ; She sights a bird -- she chuckles -- ; The spider holds a silver ball; A narrow fellow in the grass; A route of evanescence; One of the ones that Midas touched; [and] The bat is dun, with wrinkled wings -- / Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) -- The darkling thrush / Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) -- The windhover / Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) -- The wild swans at Coole / W.B. Yeats (1865-1939) -- A prayer to go to paradise with the donkeys / Francis Jammes (1968-1938).

Cont.): The cow in apple time; Two look at two; [and] The span of life / Robert Frost (1874-1963) -- The panther; The gazelle; The lion cage; The fishmonger's stall; The swan; Black cat; The flamingos; The eighth duino elegy; The sonnets to Orpheus I; [and] "Farfallettina" / Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) -- The bull; Poem; The sparrow; Stormy; [and] The turtle / William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) -- The mosquito; Snake; Baby tortoise; Humming-bird; She-goat; Kangaroo / D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) -- Birds; Pelicans; [and] Hurt hawks / Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962) -- The frigate pelican; The monkeys; Peter; He 'digesteth harde yron'; Bird-witted; [and] The pangolin / Marianne Moore (1887-1972) -- The eel / Eugenio Montale (1896-1981).

Cont.): The oyster; The butterfly; Snails; The frog; [and] The horse / Francis Ponge (1899-1988) -- The face of the horse / Nicolai Zabolotsky (1903-1958) -- Some beasts; Ode to the bee; Ode to the black panther; Ode to the cat; Ode to the hummingbird; Ode to the rooster; Ode to the seagull; Ode to the yellow bird; Horses; Cats' dream; Bestiary; [and] Bird / Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) -- The meadow mouse / Theodore Roethke (1908-1963) -- The fish; Sandpiper; Rainy season; subtropics; [and] Five flights up / Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) -- The bird of night [and] Bats / Randall Jarrell (1914-1965) -- First sight / Philip Larken (1922-1985).

Cont.): A blessing; The turtle overnight; A dark moor bird; Butterfly fish; A mouse taking a nap; [and] Lightning bugs asleep in the afternoon.

Publisher description

96033990

188331948X

9781883319489

35145952

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51756

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808.81 Bestiary