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From: Vol.02 N.01 – Otherkind

Bird. The Meta Is A Perching Bird

by Michael Farrell

Know. Reflection and observation is criticism you know. The

peacock

Joy. With its shuffling and repetitive joy. We overhear, we

Conversation. Make a construction on the wren’s conversation

Whistling is

Poetics. A kind of poetics. The wren rhymes, gives rhetoric

Flight. Gentle flight. Gesture. Listening is a self-protective

gesture

Survival. Interpretation a matter of survival. One person’s

home is

Metaphor. Another’s metaphor. The butcher-bird is a rhyming-

bird

that steals another’s expressions and metre: and from them

wrings

Blood. A little extra blood. Form is also home, but

Yours. Not yours. The kestrel favours first person, and the

Psalm. Future tense: telling its story in a melodramatic psalm

The swamp pheasant writes in rhetorical colour, makes a

gesture

Contrived. And a reading that may not have been contrived

Guard. Thornbills making leaf sounds catch hawks off-guard

A

black-shouldered kite can burn through paper with a look

Published: January 2015
Michael Farrell

is from Bombala on the Monaro in NSW. He has completed a PhD in Australian literature at Melbourne University. Recent publications include open sesame (Giramondo) and Long Dull Poem (Stale). He lives in Fitzroy.

An Australian and international
journal of ecopoetry and ecopoetics.

Plumwood Mountain Journal is created on the unceded lands of the Gadigal and Wangal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and to elders past, present and future. We also acknowledge all traditional custodians of the lands this journal reaches.

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