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THE DIRE ELEGIES: 59 Poets on Endangered Species of North America
THE DIRE ELEGIES 59 Poets on Endangered Species of North America Author:William Heyen, Maxine Kumin, W. S. Merwin, Enid Shomer, James E. Smelcer, Gary Snyder, Brian Swann, Lewis Turco Dr. Edward O. Wilson, world-renowned Harvard entomologist and two-time Pulitzer-Prize winning author, points out in the epigraph to this unique collection of poetry, ...the better an ecosystem is known, the less likely it will be destroyed. — This is the premise of THE DIRE ELEGIES: 59 Poets on Endangered Species of North America and why author B... more »ill McKibben says in the book's foreword, These magnificent poems work as a chant to summon more of the love to save the endangered from extinction. It's also why writer Susan Cerulean has called the book an important manifesto: a must-read for our times.
A helpful feature of the anthology is the species notes that accompany the poems each time a new species is introduced.
For example, when readers encounter Minnesota poet Shirley S. Stevens's poem On Spotting a Pygmy Owl, they also learn: The endangered cactus ferruginous pygmy owl, Glaucidium brasilianum cactorum, of the U.S. Southwest and Mexico, numbered only 12 birds when it was listed in the U.S. in 1997. A USF&WS recovery team began its work to rescue the species in 1998, but its fate remains precarious.
Contents
Foreword: Regarding the Frog and Our Real Selves, Bill McKibben
Preface: A Righteous Case for the 1,277, Karla Linn Merrifield, Roger M. Weir