MP3 Audios - Arts and Drama

The work of a much loved Canadian birding poet Songs for the Songs of Birds celebrates the way birds "articulate the air" and considers what the world would be without them. Narrated by the Author, the soundtrack features bird song recordings identified to species. Listen to poetry while learning bird songs!

Many of the poems in this selection have appeared in previous printed collections of poetry by Don McKay. Many are found in Camber (McClelland & Stewart, 2004), some in Strike / Slip (McClelland & Stewart, 2006) and a few make their first appearance in this selection.

Poems selected and read by Don McKay
Recorded and mixed by Janet Russell
Field Recordings of birds by Dave Fifield
Cover photograph of a Song Sparrow by Dave Fifield
Cover design by Mike Mouland
With thanks to Stan Dragland.



the poems

in aornis
alibi
field marks 2
close up of a sharp shinned hawk
song for the song of the white throated sparrow
song for the song of the chipping sparrow
song for the song of the common raven
song for the song of the canada geese
early instruments
midwintering
the bellies of fallen breathing sparrows
adagio for a fallen sparrow
field marks
bird that never wert
song for the songs of the common loon
pine siskin
song for the song of the varied thrush
song for the song of the wood thrush
ascent with thrushes
ravens at play over mount work
sometimes a voice
lift
drag
load
hover
angle of attack
plummet
glide
hang time
turbulence
sometimes a voice 2
but nature has her darker side
nocturnal migrants
a barbed wire fence meditates on a goldfinch
summer at leith
gynecology
UFO


Praise for Don McKay

”These exuberantly musical and shrewd poems are ecological in the fullest sense of the word: they seek to elucidate our relationships with our fragile dwelling places both on the earth and in our own skins.”
— New York Times Book Review

“He is our most inventive poet, a master of metaphor and a stylist with impeccable tone.”
— Patrick Lane, Globe and Mail

“In McKay’s work, attention is the foundation of a poetics and an ethics in which otherness is respected, indeed cherished, for its ability to unhouse.”
— Judges’ citation, 2007 Griffin Poetry Prize