Publisher's Synopsis
Poetry. Limited edition, signed and numbered. Winner of the Firewheel Chapbook Award. 25 SIGHTINGS is inspired by those who watch and wait, and, finally, report sightings of a bird believed to be extinct for over half a century. The bird was magnificent black with a white chevron stripe across the wing and an ivory bill. The bird fell victim to the Singer Sewing Machine. Singer clear-cut much of the southern forest, the home of the Ivory-billed, to meet the demand for sewing machine cabinets.
On one level 25 SIGHTINGS chronicles reports from those who have seen the bird that is "believed to be extinct" and posits that we have an overwhelming desire to keep the bird alive, if nothing else, in our collective imagination. On another level it tells the story of the writer's family as it chronicles the old behaviors of a fading generation. It juxtaposes the vanishing of the woodpecker with the impending loss of the writer's grandmother. This is a prose poem about extinction that suggests that we might find renewal in sightings and listings."
