A Whistling of Birds

By Isobel Dixon and Douglas Robertson

Elizabeth Bishop's hawkweed, John Berryman's hummingbirds, Ted Hughes's burnt fox – the birds, beasts and flowers of Isobel Dixon's new collection are at times kin to D.H. Lawrence, whose essay 'Whistling of Birds' lends this book its name, though each poem here is its own vivid testament to the natural world, and our often troubled and troubling place in it. Lyrical, vigorous, inventive, A Whistling of Birds is at times in conversation with Lawrence's iconic collection, Birds, Beasts and Flowers, but also ranges widely through the worlds of other writers and makers – from the Venerable Bede to Emily Dickinson, Georgia O'Keeffe to Glenn Gould, and a wealth of other connections closely examined and delicately drawn. With its resonant elegies and notes of celebration, this is a collection that flexes, hums and brims with energy, yet surely draws you in to its quiet, reflective heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nine Arches Press
• Release date: Jun 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9781913437732

Isobel Dixon

Isobel Dixon's debut, Weather Eye, won the Olive Schreiner Prize. Her further collections are A Fold in the Map, Bearings and The Tempest Prognosticator, which J.M. Coetzee described as ‘a virtuoso collection’. Mariscat published her pamphlet The Leonids, and Nine Arches publish A Whistling of Birds in June 2023. She co-wrote and performed in the Titanic centenary show The Debris Field (with Simon Barraclough and Chris McCabe) and has worked with composers, filmmakers and artists.

Book preview

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A Whistling of Birds

Also by Isobel Dixon

Weather Eye

A Fold in the Map

The Tempest Prognosticator

The Debris Field

(with Simon Barraclough and Chris McCabe)

Bearings

The Leonids

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A Whistling of Birds

Isobel Dixon

ISBN: 978-1-913437-72-5

eISBN: 978-1-913437-73-2

Copyright © Isobel Dixon, 2023.

All illustrations copyright © Douglas Robertson, 2023.

Quotations from the work of D.H. Lawrence are reproduced by permission of Paper Lion Ltd, The Estate of Frieda Lawrence Ravagli and Cambridge University Press.

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, recorded or mechanical, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Isobel Dixon has asserted her right under Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

First published June 2023 by:

Nine Arches Press

Unit 14, Sir Frank Whittle Business Centre,

Great Central Way, Rugby.

CV21 3XH

United Kingdom

www.ninearchespress.com

Printed on recycled paper by Imprint Digital, United Kingdom.

Nine Arches Press is supported using public funding by Arts Council England.

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In Memory of Gus Ferguson

1 July 1940 – 27 December 2020

&

for all those who love the creatures

especially Jan

Contents

Larch Fog

The Fence

In Nature

Whereas at Venice

The Tempest

Whalefall

Wreckfish

Fantasía for Small Octopus Orchestra

Tirrick

River Mother

After the Dive

the bats

The Snakes

the bees

The Guests

Snake in the dam

Dung Beetle

Myrmeleon

Man

the seahorse always breaks my heart

Before the Storm

Snakelore

i. Warnings at Bedtime

ii. Snapshots

iii. Advice to the Unwary Follower

Cape Indifference

Dead Heron, Burnt Fox

Kirstenbosch

Rosa x damascena

ç

Rainfall on Krabi Seen from Koh Yao Noi

Rosenberg’s Larks

Hum

A Missionary in Neon Green

How the Light Filtered Through the Leaves

The Pass of the Adders

On First Spotting a Snake’s Head Fritillary

Sweet Violet

March

Seasonal

Age of Blossom

This, Evensong

That Coyote Moment

Utterance

The Secret Peach

Self-Portrait in Sweet Woodruff

Viper’s Bugloss

My Sweet Fiorenza

Everywhere, Apricots

Threshold

The Spiders of Ragusa

Golden Delicious

In Search of the Evangelistic Beasts

The Sun, Like Trumpets Every Morning

Hummingbird ~

Gentians for Carole

The Greensward

Conversations

i. Hawkweed Burning

ii. Our Doubtful Art

iii. Dear Engraver

October Moon

Also, Hummingbirds

Matsephe’s Dance

Being, Here

Lo Scoiattolo

& a P.S. for D.H.L.

The Woburn Robin

Bede’s Sparrow

Table of Illustrations

Notes

Acknowledgements and Thanks

About the author and this book

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Larch Fog

How the twigs make a fog

between the trunks. A fog

of larchwood. Misty arch

of twig, sap, bark.

Sometimes it seems you write,

Bert, about the lives of people

just to shape the landscape

that you move them in.

Lovers and trespassers

in the haze of exploration –

sun-seared beach-daze; blissful

tree-blessed, love-hate

leaf-enfolding light and shade.

All that your eye seeks,

probes and proves and names –

your generous hoard of living names –

is not just so much backdrop,

but the kernel and the juice of it.

Pheasant, gentian, campion –

each ink-stroke makes them, now,

anew, again, when they and we are gone –

catkin, stitchwort, celandine,

haystack, lime tree, violet,

the cyclamens, the burning sun.

For D.H. Lawrence

The Fence

Break into blossom, break.

What is the point of perfect surfaces,

the aluminium shine of life,

the lacquer glaze of soft-close doors.

Step from the car and shake your limbs out,

off of the tar, away from ticking metal

cooling down, over the crunch of gravel

to the fence, just a wavering stripe, times three,

of wire. No