The Dire Elegies : 59 Poets on Endangered Species of North America

Edited by Karla Linn Merrifield [College at Brockport alumna and former faculty member] ; with Roger M. Weir [College at Brockport former administrator] ; foreword by Bill McKibben. Includes poetry by William Heyen [College at Brockport emeritus and alumnus]. Dr. Edward O. Wilson, world-renowned Harvard entomologist and two-time Pulitzer-Prize winning author, points out in the epigraph to this unique collection of poetry, ...the better an ecosystem is known, the less likely it will be destroyed. This is the premise of The Dire Elegies: 59 Poets on Endangered Species of North America and why author Bill McKibben says in the book\u27s foreword, These magnificent poems work as a chant to summon more of the love to save the endangered from extinction. It\u27s also why writer Susan Cerulean has called the book an important manifesto: a must-read for our times. A helpful feature of the anthology is the species notes that accompany the poems each time a new species is introduced. For example, when readers encounter Minnesota poet Shirley S. Stevens\u27s poem On Spotting a Pygmy Owl, they also learn: The endangered cactus ferruginous pygmy owl, Glaucidium brasilianum cactorum, of the U.S. Southwest and Mexico, numbered only 12 birds when it was listed in the U.S. in 1997. A USF&WS recovery team began its work to rescue the species in 1998, but its fate remains precarious. Includes poems by College at Brockport current and former faculty members (Karla Linn Merrifield, William Heyen, Chris Norment, Steven Huff and by several College at Brockport alumni (Karla Linn Merrifield, William Heyen, Steven Huff, Jon Palzer), as well a a preface co-authored by For College at Brockport administrator Roger Weir.https://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/bookshelf/1068/thumbnail.jp