This Nest, Swift Passerine

by Dan Beachy-Quick

Poetry. One of the most acclaimed new poets in America entwines found and original texts, creating literal form--this book--out of sheer metaphor. In this language nest, the mind of poet and reader find a common dwelling place. Through this collaged material ("used" motifs running through include Echo and Narcissus, spider webs, and philosophy), the author reveals the nest of the mind/book as a never wholly original structure, but one that forms from found material.

Genres: Poetry

72 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2009

Reviews

[Kasey Jueds · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lately I'm fascinated by commonplace books, and the connections and back-and-forth conversations between our reading and writing... so I think I'd have loved this book simply for being a sort-of commonplace book, even if it wasn't gorgeous and wise and unlike anything I've ever read, which it is, all of those things. The commonplace book aspect: quotations from Dorothy Wordsworth and Shakespeare and scientists whose names I can't remember are woven into the text, appearing and reappearing in surprising, just-right seeming places. The gorgeous-and-wise aspect: I love and admire the way this book (maybe like all true books of poems) is unabashedly itself, and full of stuff that would easily seem cliched anywhere else: birds and pines and winter and love--DBQ (I noticed several of the commenters refer to him by his initials) writes so beautifully and from what feels like a deeply honest, true-to-himself way that they all seem fully alive, not cliched at all. I love the way there's a dreamy quality to the work, but also a precision. I love the way the writing loops back on itself and the way the words and images gather weight through that process. Hooray for discovering DBQ--now I need to read more of his work.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Happy National Poetry month 2018! Trying to discover new poets, and fell for this poet hard. He lives in Colorado, and I think as well as an American poet, he is a Colorado poet that weaves mountain and plains and song and words together quite evocatively. He is inspired by the Transcendentalists, and also Melville and in this book, quotes from Dorothy Wordsworth's journal, the poet's sister, who is credited for being his constant walking companion, and uses her words to sketch a world of songbirds and song.

Each one an Echo and Echo myself
Chaos the root in my mouth: silence:
The child’s mouth before a tooth breaks through
And then tongue presses against teeth
And speaks a word:
Born into the order of words
(pointing at a tree the mother says, Tree
(pointing still mother says, Branch
(and still, seeing now what the child sees, Nest)
Nest the word echoes
Through centuries my mouth This Nest
Alive with words not spoken by me
Which I repeat back, repeat back
In the world to make my meaning heard

(excerpt from title poem:)

But how find how as it flew onward
& the mountains gave back the sound
to say what I mean the call of the bird
& the echoe after to say I’ve seen?

Raven hungers and calls and the mountain
Hungers back and calls
The whole range of peaks in the bird’s beak.
Raven lonely and the mountain rings
Loneliness & the echoe after we could see
him no longer

The echo after we could see Light in echo the eye sees
also through the ear a double infinity

[Brenda · Rating 2 out of 5]

While Beachy-Quick composes several compelling tiles in this mosaic, including prose stanzas involving dying monarch butterflies on a marigold-mossed median, the majority of the lines that resonated with me were actually written by the authors he samples (Dorothy Wordsworth, Martin Buber, Charles Dickens). In other words, I like the idea of the book more than its execution.

In one tile, Beachy-Quick notes that the "human eye, at the end of telescope, has found regions / in the sky where impossible stars are seen" (13). I find that if I read his text, as if through such a lens, focusing on stars amid the dark matter, I can appreciate the glints such as the "tooth" that "stars through" a child's "gum" (51). I want more shards of imagery, less

clamor at ecstasy but ecstasy
sings the blank
space on the page between each
word is Lethe
exquisite when spoken true (45)

[Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

At last, a book at least as strong as North True, South Bright. I am utterly impressed with this book: its project, its careful intelligence, and its breadth of thought, though this may be biased by a talk I got to see Beachy-Quick give about the act of reading, and the complicated ways reading can be insinuated into writing. This Next, Swift Passerine could easily be seen as an extension of that talk, except the idea gets further elaborated with images. One of my favorite is Echo calling back to Narcissus. Such a subtle touch to describe the way our initial thoughts on the world world can be unraveled out into infinite possibilities.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful woven lyric, dealing primarily with representation. Thinking about language as "echoes" and the way witness of the "real" continually reverberates. Deals with more critical themes than in his early books but the playfulness of form is quintessential B-Q.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

My review for This Nest, Swift Parrerine is up at: http://rattle.com/blog/2009/12/this-n...

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last third of this book far outshines the first two-thirds....

[Lily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful and strange, like a new Emerson in lyric.

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book of poetry is probably smarter than me. And while I could appreciate parts of it, I'm left confused at the end. It does have beautiful sounds and play with the language. I wish I understood it better.