Janet’s 2018 book! Feathered Dreams
FINALIST – 2018 New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards
In two categories – NM First Book and NM Poetry
WINNER – 2019 New Mexico Press Women Communications Award – Book of Poetry
(Third Place – 2019 National Press Women Award)
Here, there, and everywhere we each experience a connection with Nature. In Feathered Dreams, Janet Ruth–ornithologist, poet, artist, and international birder–shares her love of birds through poem, story, and image. She relies beautifully on her scientist’s eye and artist’s heart to recreate the magic we can encounter when we stop to watch and listen. Dedicated to 2018—The Year of the Bird—the collection introduces us to birds familiar and exotic, from grasshopper sparrows (her beloved research subjects), ravens, and owls, to resplendent quetzals and red-capped manakins.
The poet’s voice envelops the reader in humor and awe, sadness and joy. With scenes drawn from a Pennsylvania childhood, a New Mexico neighborhood, or a tropical rainforest, the poet explores themes of loss, dreams, and stories both intimate and far-reaching about the birds with whom we share the landscape. This collection of avian treasures is a “wingèd paean of gratitude for the wonders, the messengers that are birds.” Feathered dreams drift on the wind of poems and memories in this love song to birds, to life.
“Affection, respect, and wonder ring beautifully throughout the pages of Feathered Dreams. This book has been organized and assembled perfectly, stitch by stitch by word and breath, into a mural of homage to the extraordinary existence of birds. What wondrous, lucky creatures they are, to be memorialized in this grand way by the lyrical voice of Janet Ruth.”
—Pattiann Rogers, author of Quickening Fields, recipient of a special Burroughs Award for Lifetime Achievement in Nature Poetry
“Very rarely have I seen such diverse creativity brought together in one house, as it is here in Feathered Dreams. Janet Ruth has summoned her accomplished talents as a poet, visual artist, and storyteller and woven together and imbued all with her deep passion for birds as remarkable creatures and messengers of the human condition in the life we all share. I treasure this gift of synthesis and inspiration.”
—Tom Will, Ecologist, Partners in Flight Science and University of Minnesota Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology
Sample Poems from Feathered Dreams
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Book Review in The Birding Wire
Book Review in Corrales Comment (25 August 2018)
Book Review in Albuquerque Journal (16 September 2018)
Book Review in HAI Flier, Hawks Aloft, Inc. (October 2018)
Reading at Rio Grande Nature Center, Albuquerque, NM (10 November 2018)
Reading at Wild Birds Unlimited store, co-hosted by Bird Conservancy of the Rockies, Fort Collins, CO (17 November 2018)
Reading at Front Range Birding Company, co-hosted by Environment for the Americas, Boulder, CO (24 November 2018)
Reading at Wild Birds Unlimited store, Albuquerque, NM (12 January 2019)
Reading at Tucson Audubon, Tucson, AZ (6 March 2019)
Reading for Village in the Village at Corrales Art Center, Corrales, NM (28 March 2019)
Joint Reading with Greg Candela (Shallow-Rooted Heart) at Organic Books, Albuquerque, NM (31 March 2019).
Reading for New Mexico Ornithological Society, Rodeo, NM at the 2019 Annual Meeting Banquet (12 October 2019).
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Notice in The Klamath Bird newsletter, Klamath Bird Observatory (KBO) (Fall 2018)
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Credit: Cover photo of Southern Cassowary (Casuarius casuarius), by Dave Krueper.
Feather art on cover, and pen-and-ink art throughout the book by Janet Ruth.
Publisher: Mercury HeartLink, Silver City, NM
Redstarts & Ravens 