Birds Art Life Death: The Art of Noticing the Small and Significant
Kyo Maclear
‘Now when I hear birdsong, I feel an entry to that understory. When I am feeling too squeezed on the ground, exhausted by everything in my care, I look for a little sky. There are always birds flying back and forth, city birds flitting around our human edges, singing their songs.’One winter, Kyo Maclear became unmoored. Her father had recently fallen ill and she suddenly found herself lost for words. As a writer, she could no longer bring herself to create; her work wasn’t providing the comfort and meaning that it had before.But then Kyo met a musician who loved birds. The musician felt he could not always cope with the pressures and disappointments of being an artist in a big city. When he watched birds and began to photograph them, his worries dissipated. Intrigued, Kyo found herself following the musician for a year, accompanying him on his birdwatching expeditions; the sounds of birds in the city reminded them both to look outwards at the world.Intricate and delicate as birdsong, Birds Art Life Death asks how our passions shape and nurture us, and how we might gain perspective, overcome our anxieties and begin to cherish the urban wild spaces where so many of us live.
Copyright (#ulink_a917d349-a38f-5b35-8a84-20b38b1487f9)
4th Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.4thEstate.co.uk (http://www.4thEstate.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2017
First published as Birds Art Life in Canada by Doubleday Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited in 2017
First published as Birds Art Life in the United States by Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc in 2017
Copyright © Kyo Maclear 2017
By association with Westwood Creative Artists Ltd.
Illustrations (interior and jacket): Kyo Maclear
Photography: Jack Breakfast (www.smallbirdsongs.com (http://www.smallbirdsongs.com)), unless otherwise indicated
Map: Jennifer Griffiths
Book design: CS Richardson
The right of Kyo Maclear to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008225049
Ebook Edition © 2018 ISBN: 9780008210014
Version: 2017-11-06
Dedication (#ulink_fd404845-d60d-5349-99d8-a9e386bbfe98)
For David
Epigraph (#ulink_cefd4f14-f470-57ee-ab85-ee22e4488619)
Someone has put cries of birds on the air like jewels.
ANNE CARSON
Contents
Cover (#ua9ee7f4d-3499-5cf7-8dbe-85158f630132)
Title Page (#u3a5f681a-8566-518d-9074-539ca70e7c33)
Copyright (#u8606f044-a016-5fe5-9468-e6526d1392bc)
Dedication (#u763f3f35-ccd9-5c19-94d2-7db0892aed3e)
Epigraph (#ue7f8c442-3a19-522c-87ca-488b2ebb2fcb)
Map (#ub59ae97b-bc55-56c6-b8ab-0add20acbcfa)
WINTER (#u4873c1d9-e628-5eff-908f-401c29f246b5)
Prologue (#u834a40fd-7c20-59e2-96dc-596fd44fddab)
December: Love (#udc813c3d-3b92-503d-bbcd-a6324ff40252)
January: Cages (#uc1c95ecd-f8ad-543a-910b-9230e9de1e7f)
February: Smallness (#uf8f9fdc6-ea69-5b41-bac4-78a7b2cecf97)
SPRING (#ue67c3ccb-d7f3-5f5a-a3f6-a7316e2b9fe8)
March: Waiting (#uc9e7903d-3819-5917-bd89-ead52c72b9d3)
April: Knowledge (#u3e294110-6b5c-595d-91f1-81d1c104e4f0)
May: Faltering (#u84ebe6b1-089a-588f-ae26-97f024c18d8f)
SUMMER (#u4302816d-4abc-5cff-8cd1-77d74b2b8c50)
June–July: Lulls (#u5487642f-5f24-56b2-af8d-12e2f59e714c)
August: Roaming (#u165ddd26-251b-5263-a9ad-b0aa4c07be0c)
AUTUMN (#uc2821819-85ea-5f04-8cd0-092429fd7331)
September: Regrets (#u5f6867b0-f432-5480-b600-1ff765c48516)
October: Questions (#ud14ba647-172e-5ee5-818b-923ac67881d7)
