Wild Thing

When Tina Hall spoke, she asked us to tell her about something that really struck us during our time in the the Adirondacks. What she offered was the fact that there was a dead bird near the Mountain House. She said it was poetic. After that moment, I couldn't stop noticing the dead birds. 

My first experience at Hamilton was through HEOP. One day as I walked out of Ferguson, a bird fell in front of the building and died. After that too, I could not stop noticing the dead birds.

I can't understand why that only until Tina mentioned it did I notice that there was a poem somewhere in there.

For so long I thought of birds as beautiful, bright images in art.In many forms of art, the bird, due to its flight, color, and song, is used as a very positive and lively image. For example, in many romantic poems the bird's song served as a motif. Many poets would ponder about the bird's song and remark on its beauty. But I realized there were not many poems I studied throughout my education that used dead birds as a motif. I decided to look poetry and art that used dead birds as a motif. Here are some things I found:

Self-Pity

I never saw a wild thing 

sorry for itself. 

A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough

without ever having felt sorry for itself.

by D. H. Lawrence 

http://pantherpro-webdesign.com/dead-birds/transfer/deadbirds.html - Blog with posts of nothing but dead birds. 


My favourite find was the D.H. Lawrence poem. It was very simple and held a lot of tension in every line. Now I will not be able to walk through the park without thinking of this poem. Why did most of the poetry and art that was focused on throughout my education only focus on the bird's life/song and not it's death?