Jaguar Rain: The Margaret Mee Poems

By Jan Conn

Jaguar Rain is a rare text: at once a book of stand-alone poems and a work of scholarship, with textual notes and bibliography. Written in the voice of Margaret Mee (naturalist, explorer, and painter of flowers in the Amazon between 1956 and 1988), the poems are infused with wonder at a discovered new world of extraordinary richness, which is also an old world still governed by myth, and the ecological interdependence of everything: plant, animal, human, god; the living and the dead. Sources for this collection include Mee’s journals, sketchbooks, and paintings. Jan Conn is a scientist by education and occupation, but biologist meets poet in the deep dive into the soul of the rainforest. She creates the Amazonian world from inside, from her own ardent research travels there, as well as through the sharp eyes of Margaret Mee.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brick Books
• Release date: May 15, 2006
• ISBN: 9781894078900

Jan Conn

Jan Conn was brought up in Asbestos, Quebec. She now lives in Great Barrington, Massachusetts and is a professor of Biomedical Sciences whose research is focused on the genetics and ecology of mosquitoes. She has published seven previous books of poetry, most recently Botero’s Beautiful Horses (2009). Whisk, with Yoko’s Dogs, is forthcoming 2013 from Pedlar Press.

Book preview

Jaguar Rain

the Margaret Mee Poems

also by Jan Conn

Red Shoes in the Rain

The Fabulous Disguise of Ourselves

South of the Tudo Bem Café

What Dante Did with Loss

Beauties on Mad River

Jaguar Rain

the Margaret Mee Poems

Jan Conn

Preface by Sir Peter Crane

Director, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Conn, Jan, 1952-

             Jaguar rain : the Margaret Mee poems / Jan Conn ; preface by Sir Peter Crane.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN-13: 978-1-894078-48-1

ISBN-10: 1-894078-48-9

1. Mee, Margaret—Poetry. I. Mee, Margaret II. Title.

PS8555.O543J34 2006     C811’.54     C2005-907691-7

Copyright © Jan Conn, 2006

Second Printing – November 2007

We acknowledge the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP), and the Ontario Arts Council for their support of our publishing program.

Cover image: Cattleya violacea, 1981. Margaret Mee. Rio Cuini,

Amazonas state, Brazil. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

The author photograph is by Carl Schlichting.

The book is set in Bembo, Rotis and Zapfino.

Design and layout by Alan Siu.

Printed by Sunville Printco Inc.

Brick Books

431 Boler Road, Box 20081

London, Ontario N6K 4G6

www.brickbooks.ca

IN MEMORIAM

Herbert Murray Keith Conn (1923-2004)

Anne Halley (1928-2004)

for Carlo

for Greville and Elisabeth Mee

Contents

Illustrations

Preface by Sir Peter Crane, Director, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Antecedents

Near the Solimões River, 1880

Bowl and Spear

Casa de Pedra

The House of the Tapir

Pacoval Incised

Charm against Personal Fears

First Contact: Scissors

AKA Heaven

The Rain Holds Its Breath

For the Giant Anteater

Rio Guamá

Gustavia augusta

Moon with Ant

Alto Juruena

The Rikbaktsa

Aripuana

Blue Silk

AKA Heaven

Serra do Curicuriari

Small Pink Nebulae

Clusia field sketch

King of the Amazon

The Light on the Rio Maturacá

Commodus on the Cauaburi

Mountain of Mist and Cloud

Pico da Neblina

Why

The Santa Casa

The Monkey-Skin Bracelet and I

The Curious Waistcoat of the Armadillo

Translating Yellows

Voice of Flowers

Orchid and Sandpiper

Amazonian Whites

Clusia species

Up the Rio Negro

Fish Leap toward the Moon

Translating Yellows

Mistaken for Thieves

Carnelian Flowers, Dark Trees

The Maraú River: a Lament

Wildlife

Biographies

Urospatha sagittifolia

Heliconia: a triptych

Cattleya violacea

Nymphaea rudgeana

Scuticaria steelii

Philodendron brevispathum

Cochleanthes amazonica

Glory

Margaret Considers von Humboldt

Notes from the Hotel Paris, Manaus

The Bay of Sapucaia

To Be Sung to Villa-Lobos’ The Amazon Forest

Wasps

Fountains of Water Blown Skyward

Wildlife

Eel and Storm

Seeking the Source of the Rio Cauhy

Eel and Storm

Aboard the Izabel Mariá

Lizard

Lago Surubim

Galeandra

Parana Anavilhanas

Fish Pictographs

Backwater, Little Bays

Encounters

On the Rio Trombetas

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Margaret Mee (1909-1988)

Acknowledgments

Biography

Illustrations

Cover: Cattleya violacea, 1981. Margaret Mee. Rio Cuini, Amazonas state, Brazil. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Antecedents: Ink sketch of map of River Araçá, north of the Rio Negro. Journey dated 1970. Margaret Mee. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

AKA Heaven: Clusia grandifolia, 1982. Margaret Mee. Rio Negro, Amazonas state, Brazil. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

The Light on the Rio Maturacá: Streptocalyx poeppigii, 1985. Margaret Mee. Amazonas state, Brazil. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Translating Yellows: Catasetum galeritum, 1981. Margaret Mee. Amazonas state, Brazil. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Wildlife: Unknown plant, possibly Ochnaceae family, 1972. Margaret Mee. Rio Jurubaxi, Amazonas state, Brazil. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Eel and Storm: Sobralia margaretae, 1977. Margaret Mee. Rio Urupadi, Amazonas state, Brazil. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Preface by Sir