The Return of the Cranes

by Heath-Stubbs, John

• ISBN13: 9781857546064
• ISBN10: 1857546067
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-04-01
• Publisher: Carcanet Press Ltd.

Summary

In this collection John Heath-Stubbs's newest poems revisit the sounds—since he is now blind—of his favorite landscapes. Spending his formative years in the rural countryside, he learned to identify birds by their song and sound, and here he uses that experience to make new discoveries in form and theme. Technically brilliant, this work is also playfully irreverent when it comes to human folly.

Author Biography

John Heath-Stubbs has been awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry and the St. Augustine Cross for his contribution to the arts. He is also a critic, anthologist, and translator whose works include Galileo's Salad, Artorius, and The Mouse, The Bird and the Sausage.

Table of Contents

The Return of the Cranes	7	(1)
Ostrich	8	(1)
Mary Kingsley and the Crocodile	9	(2)
Fanny Trollope and the Alligator	11	(1)
Karawan	12	(1)
Rhodope to Aesop	13	(2)
The Musician Wren	15	(1)
Epithalamium for Two Big Slugs	16	(1)
George Orwell on Paradise	17	(1)
Vision and Television	18	(1)
The Burger King	19	(2)
Bunch	21	(1)
Going Metric	22	(1)
The Decent Inn	23	(1)
A Dream Transcribed	24	(1)
Matilda	25	(1)
Our Lady's Juggler	26	(1)
The Miracle of Saint Nicholas	27	(2)
The Five Faithful Serving Men	29	(1)
The Brass Bottle	30	(1)
Anti-Daffodil Poem	31	(2)
Reader to the Kaiserin	33	(1)
An Echo of Schubert	34	(1)
Dinner in a Dinosaur	35	(1)
Somewhat Too Sensational	36	(2)
The Emperor's Parrot	38	(2)
The Language of Birds	40	(1)
Solomon Eagle	41	(1)
Bournemouth and Brighton	42	(1)
Sir Percy Shelley Speaks	43	(2)
Conversation with an Extra-Terrestrial	45	(1)
Just Enough Change	46	(1)
Gay?	47	(1)
The Frigate Bird in Love	48	(1)
An English Idyll	49	(2)
Ancient Wisdom	51	(1)
National Tastes in Murder	52	(1)
The Skeleton in the Cupboard	53	(1)
Tinnunculus in Bayswater	54	(1)
El Draque Forbids the Banns	55	(3)
A Genetic Predisposition	58	(1)
Senecio Recalls Playing Football	59	(2)
Senecio and Lady Chatterley	61	(1)
Class Distinctions among Lice	62	(1)
The Millennium Bug	63	(2)
For a Commonplace Book	65	(1)
An Acrostic for the Omar Khayyam Club	66	(1)
Omar in Autumn	67	(1)
Kathleen Raine: A Tribute	68	(1)
A Christmas Rose	69	(1)
Just Once a Year	70	(1)
Bede's Death Song	71	(1)
Poem for Easter	72