Monday, September 25, 2023

The World According to Crow --by Sinead McClure

 Publisher: The Calendar Road Press (October 12, 2022)

Language: English

Paperback: 37 pages

ISBN-13: 978-1739102005

5 Stars

 

I attended a Zoom poetry reading where Ms. McClure was one of the featured readers. I don’t remember how many poems she read before I had already gone to the site and ordered her book. I marked half as favorites and on a reread, added more.

 

The book begins with The Word According to Crow.  It begins, “Rooks do good mimicry but this orator is no priest, / collarless and open=beaked he shifts his weight on the steeple. / His sermon, a daily litany of caws and trills. // … A black and white streak of cirrus-crow / evaporates to silence.”

 

The poems ask questions such as, “Where does Keshcorran go in the fog?” A good question, that. Several animals and birds speak in this collection (and a hill with caves). We hear from a pangolin, a jackdaw, and the world. The poem, Preparing my dog for reincarnation is a delight as she tries to give it cooking tips, teach it patience, only to come to the realization at the end that the dog has, “No care or thought / for any other moment.”

 

We read of fox and moth and end with, Dream Catcher “The dream catcher takes our harshest winters / hold tight, to spin forever from the alder.”  

 

This is a delightful book. One to be read and enjoyed many times.  

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