Bringing Nature Indoors

ARTICLE BY Rick Hellman, KU News Service

If you visited a state park this spring and summer, you were offered a literary entrée into nature, as well — a free, illustrated book of poetry inspired by our fine feathered friends, the birds.

Last year, Humanities Kansas (www. HumanitiesKansas.org) commissioned Megan Kaminski, University of Kansas associate professor of English, to edit and co-write the chapbook “Words of a Feather,” illustrated by artist Brad Sneed (www.BradSneed.com). The nonprofit organization has now printed 3,000 copies, half of which will be distributed to state parks, where a copy will be placed in every cabin and welcome center.

The Elizabeth Schultz Environmental Fund supported the distribution of copies across Douglas County.

“Interest in the book has exceeded expectations, so we opened a competitive application for Kansas cultural organizations to receive copies,” says Leslie VonHolten, director of grants and outreach at Humanities Kansas. “This is the first time Humanities Kansas has published a poetry book like this. It’s exciting to see the interest out there for it.” (Visit the website to find a copy or to download a PDF.)

Kaminski has long considered birds and other nonhuman animals and plants her companions, and she expresses that in her poetry and research. That’s why VonHolten reached out to her with the idea for the project, Kaminski says.

“Like many of us during the pandemic lockdown, I think Leslie was spending more time at home and outside,” Kaminski says. “She came up with the idea of this book and thought of me and the work that I was doing to help people facilitate connections with and within our own ecosystems ... and to help build practices that allow us to see other-than-human animals as sentient beings, as persons, worthy of our respect, reverence, and attention.”

Kaminski says VonHolten asked her to include Emily Dickinson’s famous “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers,” but left the rest to her. Kaminski decided she would write one poem and include one by the late, renowned nature poet Mary Oliver and one by the late, Kansas-based poet Ronald Johnson. Then she reached out to seven other living poets from Kansas or with Kansas connections and asked them to contribute.

“In setting parameters for poets, I focused on the idea of connection,” Kaminski says, “of seeing birds as a way to reawaken our sense of wonder with the natural world, and a sense of reverence, kindness, and love that results from seeing ourselves in relation with the birds we interact with daily.”

The author says while most people like both birds and poetry, “they also are subjects that people often feel like they need specialized knowledge to appreciate ... and I wanted to create access for people, to create an invitation to enjoy poetry, and to interact with the birds in our lives and through the poems – to maybe eliminate some of those perceived barriers.”

One of the Kansas poets Kaminski engaged is Ignacio Carvajal, assistant professor in KU’s Department of Spanish & Portuguese, whose untitled poem celebrates the mockingbird in a combination of English, Spanish, and K‘iche’, the latter an Indigenous Central American language that he teaches.

“I was really excited to have a poem from Ignacio especially given his long relationship with Kansas birds,” Kaminski says, “and it was a delight when Ignacio wrote a poem that engages that across multiple languages and perhaps is also an invitation to the significant Spanish-speaking population of Kansas.”

In keeping with the theme of connection and the book’s focus on Kansas, Kaminski says, Sneed’s illustrations “are all birds you can see in your backyard or down the street or in your neighborhood. They might provide an inspiration for learning more about the birds around us, but the chapbook is meant to be a start, not a complete survey.”

The poems and illustrations give readers a chance to contemplate the birds and our relationship to them at a slow pace. If people will take a moment to engage in that contemplation, Kaminski says, they are likely to find it rewarding. It might even ultimately benefit the environment, she says.

“When we pay attention to and feel grateful for other beings in our life, that’s an opening for reciprocity and care,” the poet says. “If I begin to recognize the birds that live in my surroundings, I begin to learn their names and their habits and understand how they live in relation to others. And we see their songs and presence as gifts, as an integral part of our own lives. Then we start to think about ‘What can I give back to support them?’”

–poet Megan Kaminski