Monster Smackdown: The Trojan Horse Vs. Godzilla At Cornell Library

By Nancy Mattoon

A Japanese historical magazine,
which singles out the birth of Godzilla
as the signature event of the year 1954.
(All Images Courtesy of Carl A. Kroch Library.)

Man has a long history of creating "famous" animals. Some are mythical or literary, like the Minotaur or Toto. Others are real animals, elevated to celebrity status like Rin Tin Tin, or more recently, Internet sensation Maru the Cat. A fascinating new exhibit at Cornell University's Carl A. Kroch Library uses rare books, manuscripts, photographs, and artifacts to explore "how and why humans choose to elevate certain individual animals or species to the status of divinities, emblems, mascots, heroes, or celebrities."

Woodcut Illustration From:
Opera Virgiliana. Lyon: Crespin, 1529.

Animal Legends: From the Trojan Horse to Godzilla is an elephantine display of serpentine complexity. It is divided into five major sections, corralling creatures from ancient times to modern, including the menagerie rescued from the Biblical Flood by Noah, Ulysses's "noble hound" Argos from Homer's Odyssey, E.B. White's web-spinner Charlotte, and even canine cosmonauts Belka and Strelka, two of the first living creatures to orbit the earth for an entire day. It is inspired in large part by the pioneering work of French cultural historian Michel Pastoureau, who in his book Les Animaux Célèbres, maintains that our intense attraction to wonders of the animal kingdom comes from the simple fact of "how difficult it is to be human."

Barrie G. James. The Trojan Horse:
the Ultimate Japanese Challenge to Western Industry.
London: Mercury Business Books, 1990.

The first section of the display, Tales of Destruction and Rebirth, begins with an examination of the Trojan Horse. The exhibit notes that the wooden equine giant, filled with soldiers, "may have been a siege machine." But "in any case, the tale was made hugely popular by Virgil’s Aeneid, and by innumerable pictures and films." Books and ephemera dating from 1529 to 1990 reveal the staying power of this "metaphor for political tactics of infiltration," and the show reminds us that the horse's most recent incarnation is as "the name of a destructive computer application."

Poster for the American Version of
La Guerra di Troia, 1961.

The rare books and ephemera in the show providing images of the Trojan Horse are a great indication of the huge range of the exhibition. The section begins with Opera Virgiliana (1529), which features two hundred woodcut illustrations for the poems contained in the Eclogues, the Georgics and the Aeneid. After that beauty is the 1664 "pocket edition" of the works of Virgil from the Elsevier family of Dutch booksellers, publishers, and printers. Up next is a garishly kitschy poster for the big-budget 1961 "sword and sandal" motion picture epic, La Guerra di Troia. Following on the heels and hoofs of the horse opera, is a presentation copy of Archibald MacLeish's The Trojan Horse: A Play (1952), inscribed to Cornell English Professor Arthur Mizener. Finally an alarmist business book from 1990, The Trojan Horse: the Ultimate Japanese Challenge to Western Industry, by futurist Barrie James, closes out the wildly eclectic selection.

Poster for Gojira.
Japan: Toho Ltd., 1954.

One of the largest sections of the show is called From Farm To Screen. Creatures covered here include E.B. White's super-mouse on a road trip, Stuart Little, Disney stalwarts Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, and the pop culture star attraction of the exhibition, mass media "mon-star," Godzilla. The exhibit notes that unlike the "carefree escapism" offered by Disney's cartoon critters, "Godzilla, a primitive, destructive force awakened by the excesses of modern science," plays "on the darker aspects of human fears and repressed desires." But the subversive appeal of the unstoppable King of Chaos cannot be denied: "Godzilla has starred in 28 feature films produced by the [Japanese] Toho Film Company, as well as two American remakes, and has also appeared in television series, novels, comic books, video games, songs, toys and countless commercials and advertisements."

A Pictorial Box Set of
Five Godzilla Films in Translation.
Japan: Toho Ltd. and Anchor Entertainment, 1997.

Animal Legends: From the Trojan Horse to Godzilla presents a terrific introduction to a cultural phenomenon that deserves much more serious study. The animal kingdom is an important part of the collective iconography of every culture that has ever existed across the centuries, and throughout the world. And, as the exhibit points out, "All human societies have reserved a mythical or allegorical place for...extra-ordinary animals, 'fictitious' or 'real,' from the most ancient myths of origin to the most recent scientific discoveries." As mankind's environmental expansion continues to encroach upon what used to be the domain of the animal kingdom, the time to reflect upon its cultural importance is now.

Poster for Godzilla, King of the Monsters!.
Japan: Toho Ltd. and Jewell Enterprises, 1956.

Animal Legends: From the Trojan Horse to Godzilla continues through September 30, 2011 at the Hirshland Exhibition Gallery of the Carl A. Kroch Library of Cornell University. A terrific online exhibit has been created to those unable to visit the Ithaca, N.Y. campus.

_________

The Strange Case Of "Britain's Audubon" and Edward Lear

By Nancy Mattoon

The Australian Black Swan From John Gould's The Birds of Australia, 1840-1848.
The illustration is by either Elizabeth Coxen Gould or Henry Constantine Richter.
(Image Courtesy of University of Glasgow Library.)

The recent sale of a first edition of John James Audubon's Birds of America for $11.5 million made it the most expensive printed book in history. In fact an article in The Economist online estimates that, adjusted for inflation, "five of the ten highest prices ever paid for printed books were paid for copies of Birds of America." Those two items must have Victorian ornithologist John Gould, known as "The British Audubon," spinning in his grave.

John Gould. An 1849 portrait by T.H. Maguire.
(Image Courtesy Of Albert R. Mann Library.)

John Gould was the most ambitious of all Victorian ornithologists, combining a shrewd and uncompromising business sense, with a sharp eye for specimens, and a sharper one for artistic talent. In his own time, as he would have been the first to inform you, Gould was just as famous, and more financially successful, than Audubon.

The Emu From John Gould's The Birds of Australia, 1840-1848.
The illustration is by either Elizabeth Coxen Gould
or Henry Constantine Richter.
(Image Courtesy of University of Glasgow Library.)

John Gould was the son of an ambitious gardener, who through hard work and diligence became the foreman of the Royal Gardens at Windsor. Gould learned two things from his father: a love of the natural world and a belief that a man could rise above his station through sheer determination.

The Beautiful Grass-Finch,
From John Gould's The Birds of Australia, 1840-1848.
The illustration is by either Elizabeth Coxen Gould
or Henry Constantine Richter.
(Image Courtesy of University of Glasgow Library.)

From one of his father's fellow gardeners Gould learned the art of taxidermy. Skill at preserving birds and animals was highly prized among Victorians, and some said his passion for it verged on an obsession. In any case, Gould set up his first business in Windsor as a taxidermist, and quickly won recognition for his ability to make his subjects look "natural." He became so adept at the trade that he was commissioned to stuff a giraffe for King George IV.

The Nankeen Night Heron,
From John Gould's The Birds of Australia, 1840-1848.
The illustration is by either Elizabeth Coxen Gould
or Henry Constantine Richter.
(Image Courtesy of University of Glasgow Library.)

Gould's chance to advance beyond taxidermy came in 1827, when the newly founded Zoological Society of London held a contest to hire its first director and curator. Despite having almost no formal education, John Gould entered and won the position. In 1830 the Society acquired a large collection of bird skins from the Himalayan region of Asia.

The Australian Cassowary,
From John Gould's The Birds of Australia, 1840-1848.
The illustration is by either Elizabeth Coxen Gould
or Henry Constantine Richter.
(Image Courtesy of University of Glasgow Library.)

These exotic specimens, many never before documented, gave Gould the idea of publishing an illustrated guide depicting the rare birds. This became his first published work, A Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains (1830–1832). It should be noted that although Gould was credited as author, the text was written mostly by the secretary of the Society, Nicholas Aylward Vigors, and the lithography was done by primarily his wife, Elizabeth Coxen Gould, based on John Gould's original sketches. This became a pattern with Gould throughout his career. He repeatedly took sole credit for accomplishments that were in fact a team effort.

One of Edward Lear’s illustrations for John Gould’s
A Monograph of the Ramphastidae,
or Family of Toucans.
(Image Courtesy Of Albert R. Mann Library.)

The other unsung contributor to Gould's first book was Edward Lear. In 1830 Lear published the first two folios of Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots, a ground-breaking work of ornithology for several reasons: it was the first bird book published in the large folio size, the first on a single family of birds, the first in which all of the specimens were drawn from life (at the Parrot House of London's Zoological Gardens), and one of the first to use the relatively new process of lithography, rather than engraving, for illustrations. Alas for Lear, while his work was an artistic triumph, it was also a financial failure. He spent too much time obsessively perfecting his work, and not enough selling subscriptions and collecting payments.

Edward Lear in 1840,
as drawn by his friend Wilhelm Marstrand.
(Image Courtesy Of Albert R. Mann Library.)

But Lear's business failure was Gould's opportunity. He not only hired Lear to work for him, he appropriated Lear's format and style as his own. Thus all of Lear's innovations were soon attributed to the more successful Gould. (Save for the fact that Gould often used preserved specimens rather than live birds as his subjects.) Lear taught the lithography process to Elizabeth Gould, and drew all of the backgrounds for her illustrations. None of his work was credited.

Macrocercus ararauna (Blue and Yellow Maccaw)
from Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae,
or Parrots by Edward Lear.
(Image Courtesy Of Albert R. Mann Library.)

The relationship between Lear and Gould has been called "seven years of exploitation," in an online exhibit on Lear's ornithological illustrations from Cornell's University's Albert R. Mann Library. According to the exhibit, Lear created ten complete plates for Gould's 1834 work, A Monograph of the Ramphastidae, or Family of Toucans, with no acknowledgement whatsoever, and with his signature actually having been erased from the plates in the second edition. In total Lear contributed to six of Gould's books.

Detail from Edward Lear's illustration of a Raven (Corvus corax)
from Volume III of John Gould's The Birds of Europe.
(Image Courtesy Of Albert R. Mann Library.)

John Gould was by anyone's estimation a master of the business of books. He deserves immense credit as one of the nineteenth century's greatest natural history publishers. Driven and prolific, he produced 15 major works on birds, containing over 3,000 color plates, and covering every major continent save Africa. Additionally, he wrote over 300 scientific articles and many smaller books. If he had been content to be remembered as an ornithologist and publisher, his legacy would have been untarnished.

Macrocercus aracanga (Red and Yellow Maccaw),
from Edward Lear's
Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae,
or Parrots.

(Image Courtesy Of Albert R. Mann Library.)

But John Gould's desire to be held in esteem as an artist and writer caused him to needlessly take credit where credit was not due. Upon Gould's death in 1881, the usually affable Lear wrote, "He was one I never liked really, for in spite of a certain jollity and bonhommie [sic], he was a harsh and violent man... [A] persevering hard working toiler in his own line, but ever as unfeeling for those about him... He owed everything to his excellent wife,—& to myself, without whose help in drawing he had done nothing." A sad coda to a life of true accomplishment, shadowed only by the need to be seen as an artistic genius, when being business genius was enough.
__________

The Bombshell Book Art of Werner Pfeiffer

By Nancy Mattoon

Explosive Subject: A "Book-Object,"
Created By Artist Werner Pfeiffer.
(All Images Courtesy of Cornell University Libraries.)

"The book is one of the most powerful weapons ever invented." This is the mantra of Artist Werner Pfeiffer, who has spent over forty years creating--and ironically destroying--books to prove their strength and importance.

Fold-Out Book #1.
Artist Pfeiffer says reading this book involves
"bursts of manipulating, arranging, feeling and touching."

Pfeiffer's childhood in Nazi Germany exposed him not only to censorship and book burnings, but also to the use of the written word as a tool to build a society based on hated, violence, and genocide. At the same time, as a boy Pfeiffer cherished books as "an escape from the harsh realities of a disintegrating world."

Difficult to Fit.

He became obsessed with the complexities of the book: an everyday object that could be a magnificent work of art; a symbol of enlightenment and learning that could spread intolerance and evil; a spiritual sanctuary that could carry the recipe for a living hell; a symbol of truth and a transmitter of lies. With his art he expresses every aspect of this amazingly conflicted cultural chameleon.

Fold-Out Book #2.
"Here the interaction is based on a visual language and
on the experience of manipulating elements into different settings."

Pfeiffer was born in Stuttgart in 1937. His boyhood home was obliterated by Allied bombing raids, and he was internally, if not externally, scarred by "the trauma of World War II and its tumultuous aftermath." He remembers his first schoolbooks were "leftovers" from the Nazi regime, "with words and sentences blackened out...chapters deleted and entire pages missing." Ideas which he had been taught six months before were worth dying for, were now concealed as so evil they were "unfit to be read about." Pfeiffer never forgot how the Third Reich used and abused the book. "The power of a book to spread free and unbridled thought," he learned, "renders it equally vulnerable...when political or religious fanatics are troubled by challenges to their orthodox rhetoric."

Original Chip.

As a young man, Pfeiffer discovered that, "With the passage of time I found myself ever more seduced by books, captivated by their content. But I became equally intrigued by their structure, their making, their décor, their design, their history, their politics." He enrolled in Stuttgart's Akademie der Bildenden Kunste, to study art and design, and found himself specializing in book arts.

One Of Three Flexgons That Make Up Abracadabra.
"A book about magic. Not the illusory trickery of a conjuror,
but the magic of an artist’s work."

In 1961 he emigrated to the United States, and spent a decade as a freelance designer and art director, building a portfolio of award-winning graphic and commercial art. In 1969 his hard work, talent, and creative devotion to typography and the written word, were recognized by the prestigious Pratt Institute, which named him Director of the Adlib Press, which produces limited edition artist books and letterpress publications for students and faculty. He subsequently became the head of Pratt's Book Arts program, and held both of these position until retiring in 2003.

Literary Salvo.

But despite the demands of his academic career, Pfeiffer continued to produce his own artist's book and what he came to call "book objects." As might be expected from a man with such a conflicted history with books, the two threads of his artistic work are diametrically opposed. "In creating my Book-Objects," he explains, "I deconstruct books, dismantle them and assemble whatever fragments remain into new composites. The opposite is true when I make Artist Books. Here I carefully plot, make thorough investigations, and spend plenty of time mapping out concepts to build new volumes from scratch." The unifying theme of both types of work is, of course, the inherent power of the book.

Woodcut From: The River.
"Structured as a long accordion fold (fully extended it measures 26½ feet),
the book echoes the rhythm and flow of a river."

Pfeiffer's Book-Objects are a modern take on the idea of the book as a vulnerable and imperiled technology. These "are made with real books. They are not casts, nor are they sculpted imitations. At its core each piece has bound, printed pages. Glued together and painstakingly covered with gesso, they are silenced and sealed for good. I practice this destruction, this obvious censorship, simply as metaphor. It is to visualize, to demonstrate, to provoke. For these acts of violence are not about the damage done to stacks of paper, to books. The objects are about the harm inflicted on the human spirit. The ropes, the nails, the clamps, the hooks and knifes are real as well. They are symbols of pain, of torture, of suppression which are inevitably brought on by the censor’s act."

Difficult Chapter.

By contrast, Werner Pfeiffer's artist books incorporate printing techniques that have been used in book production for centuries, including woodcuts, linoleum block-prints, lithographs, etchings, handset typography, and letterpress printing. He uses both handmade and archival quality papers, and cuts, sews, and decorates his fine bindings. Produced in limited editions of 10 to 50 copies, these works demonstrate the artist's respect for the book in its "elemental simplicity...deliberately low-tech, cumbersome and slow. It is private. It challenges the imagination. It is a conversation between the author and reader...a dialogue of minds."

Errantry.
A 27-foot-long canvas scroll housed in a bullet-shell casing,
"the text and images are set against a chronology
of war, conflict, and genocide in the 20th century. "

Cornell University Library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections is the last stop for a traveling exhibition of Werner Pfeiffer's book art. Previously on display at Smith College, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Toronto, Werner Pfeiffer (censor, villain, provocateur, experimenter): Book-Objects and Artist Books, will be on view at the Hirshland Gallery of the Carl A. Kroch Library through February of 2011. An online exhibit featuring highlights of the show is available on the library's website.
__________

Do Bibliophiles Dream Of Electric Sheep?

DICK, Philip K.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
London: Rapp and Whiting, 1969.
First British Edition Of The 2010 Cornell University
New Student Reading Project Title.
(All Images Courtesy Of Cornell University Libraries.)

Ah, book clubs. When they are good they are very, very good. But when they are bad they are horrid. Like the hopeful single preparing for a blind date, the bibliophile spends all week getting mentally gussied-up for an evening of amiable companionship. The big night finally arrives, and our literary lover sets off artfully clothed in the latest haute couture critiques, accessorized with exquisitely elegant opinions, and scented with a splash of wicked wit. Longing for an evening of stimulating conversation, climaxing with the deep connection found only with true soul mates, this eager reader can hardly contain his high hopes.

DICK, Philip K.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968.
First American Edition.

But soon the ice-water of cruel reality douses even the most ardent suitor's desire for a marriage of true minds. Our would-be dream dates haven't even finished the book, much less come prepared to share their keen insights and innermost thoughts about it. The real agenda of our fellow clubbers is to down some cheap wine, and enjoy the thrill of having a captive audience to tell their troubles to. After one of these thinly-veiled pity parties, spending a lifetime reading in solitude with a couple of cats for company never sounded so good.

DICK, Philip K.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 1996.
Note Inclusion Of The Film Adaptation's Title
On This Trade Paperback Cover.

But what if there were a book club lead by an Ivy League professor of 18th century English literature, whose members included a cognitive psychologist, an environmental engineer, a computer scientist, a veterinarian, an expert on Arabic literature, and a horticultural ecologist? And there's no need to worry about being rejected by such elite company, this club is always open to new members. Where do I sign up, you say? All you need to do is go online and check out the Cornell New Student Reading Project.

DICK, Philip K. Blade Runner
(Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep).
New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 1982.
On This Mass Market Edition The Film's Title Takes Precedence
Over The Book's, Despite The Fact That This Is
Simply An Unchanged Reprint of the Text.

Cornell's Reading Project is now in its tenth year, and was originally designed so that all new freshmen and transfer students would enter the school with "a shared focus." Each year, about 50 titles, recommended by faculty, staff, and several student groups, are short-listed for the project, out of which one is chosen. Past titles have included The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Lincoln At Gettysburg by Gary Wills, The Pickup by Nadine Gordimer, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Antigone by Sophocles, and Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.

DICK, Philip K. Blade Runner
(Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep).
New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 1982.
Another Mass Market Issue. This One Features Not Only
The Film's Title, But Also Its Poster Art.

The project quickly expanded to the entire city of Ithaca, via participation from the Tompkins County Public Library. Branches of the Public Library stock multiple copies of the book chosen by Cornell, including translations into over a half-dozen foreign languages, as well an audio books, large print copies, and ebooks. The Public Library and the University offer book discussions, art exhibits, writing workshops, and lectures all centered on the year's selected text. And now six lectures by distinguished faculty members (AKA our "Book Club" colleagues) have been posted online, along with study questions, a book blog, and online exhibits, opening this "community read" to anyone with access to a computer.

BURROUGHS, William S.
The Blade Runner (A Movie).
Berkeley, Calif.: Blue Wind Press, 1979.
A Novella Which Gave The 1982 Film Adaptation
of Androids Its New Title,
And Nothing Else.

This year's title is an offbeat break from the choices of the past nine years. It comes from the catalog of "genre fiction," the red-headed stepchild of the literary world, often overlooked, and even disparaged, by academia. The Cornell Project title for 2010 is the highly influential Science Fiction novel, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. First published in 1968, it is the tale of a dystopian future in which the majority of earth's population has emigrated to Mars following an environmentally devastating World War.

Alan E. Nourse. The Blade Runner.
Philadelphia, Penn.: David McKay, 1974.
And The Book From Which Burroughs Took His Title.
Also Having Nothing To Do With Androids.

The mass extinction of animal species in the aftermath of "World War Terminus" has led to the creation of incredibly life-like and highly coveted android "animals" as replacements. The trouble begins when the android-creating technology is taken one step further, resulting in the manufacture of robotic "humans," who can no longer be distinguished from their flesh and blood counterparts. These human-machine hybrids are treated as slaves said to lack the essential quality of a true human, empathy. But the human race's inability to empathize with their android doppelgangers, who are hunted down and "killed" if they attempt to disguise their mechanical origins, raises questions as to who and what constitutes a genuine, sentient person.

A Still From The Blade Runner Press Kit,
Featuring Actress Daryl Hannah As A
"Standard Pleasure Model" Android.

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? is also the first Reading Project book to have had a major impact on popular culture. This is made clear in an exhibit sponsored by Cornell Library's Division of Rare Books and Manuscript Collections, which is also available online. Along with rare editions of Dick's novel, thematically related short stories, and correspondence concerning its creation, the exhibit details its road to the silver screen as the Sci-Fi film classic, Blade Runner (1982).

DICK, Philip K. and Tony Parker.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Los Angeles, Calif.: Boom! Studios, 2009.
A Graphic Novel Version Of Dick's Book,
Complete With Every Word Of The Original Text.

Initially relegated to cult film status due to its failure at the box office, director Ridley Scott's adaptation of Dick's novel has since been recognized as a masterpiece of futuristic story-telling and production design, and has served as the model for dozens of far inferior post-apocalyptic Sci-Fi sets, costumes, and screenplays centered on humanity's attempts to survive amidst the wreckage of a shattered planet. Blade Runner's pop culture influence is further revealed by the library exhibit's display of products created by the numerous cottage industries fueled by the film's hard-core fans, including toys, comic books, video games, magazines, fan-zines, and other ephemera.

Toy Advertisement From:
Blade Runner Souvenir Magazine, Vol. 1.
New York: Ira Friedman, 1982.


And The Supercool Toy Version Of Android Hunter
Rick Deckard's (Harrison Ford) "Spinner."

Upon reflection, the initially surprising selection of Philip K. Dick's Science Fiction novel for a prestigious University's interdisciplinary reading project becomes more and more inspired. The book's exploration of the theme "What constitutes humanity?" makes it germane to such diverse disciplines as psychology, sociology, philosophy, anthropology, and medicine. It's exploration of Earth's fate following a planetary disaster brings in biology, ecology, astronomy, climatology, geography, geology, zoology, agronomy, horticulture, botany, and veterinary medicine. And it's position as a landmark of dystopian fiction and film brings in the departments of literature, interior design, information science, theatre and drama, mass media, marketing, public relations, advertising, and business. Another book with such an eclectic reach would be nearly impossible to find.

Another Blade Runner Toy, Inspired By

The Origami Creations of Rick Deckard's

Fellow Cop, Gaff (Edward James Olmos.).

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? really does have the universality to appeal to almost anyone. Who knows, this title might even keep those book club slackers reading all the way to the last page. Now if only they'd give the text enough thought to actually have something worthwhile to say about the damn thing...
__________

For Cornell Library "The Time Of The Singing Of Birds Is Come"

A Bali Starling, An Endangered Species Whose Song Was Recorded By Linda Macaulay.

The goal of poets is to make words sing. And so what better to inspire them than the sublime sounds, expressed so casually, so naturally, so sweetly, by the songbird? It comes as no surprise, then, that nearly every major poet has written a poem in praise of avian warblers. From Catallus to Chaucer to Keats to Collins, all are spellbound by the music of the skies. They try, with all the tools at their command, to conjure up in words the notes that flow so effortlessly from far simpler creatures.

A Rust and Yellow Tanager, Its Song Is Another Of Linda Macaulay's First Cuts.

What makes this situation far more vexing for today's aspiring poets, is that their time spent communing with nature is often short. Since they compose on a keyboard, requiring electricity or a quickly-drained battery, prolonged exposure to the melodies of the meadow may seem a distant dream. But thanks, in large part to a passionate, intrepid, and adventuresome couple, the song of the lark, and thousands and thousands of other calming coos, are just a mouse-click away. Wannabe wordsmiths, get thee (virtually) to the Macaulay Library of Sound.

William and Linda Macaulay.
(Photo Courtesy of City University of New York.)

Not created expressly to produce poetry, what was formerly known as the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology's Library of Sound, has recently been renamed in honor of two of its foremost contributors, William and Linda Macaulay. The Macaulay Library of Sound is the world's largest collection of zoological sounds, featuring audio (and secondarily video) recordings of over 9,000 species of birds, mammals, and insects. All of the sounds are available online, free of charge.

A Vermiculated Fishing Owl, The Only Known Photograph Of This Species, Captured By William Macaulay in Borneo In 1995. Its Bird Call Is A "First Cut" Recorded by Linda Macaulay.

Linda Macaulay has devoted 23 years of her life to recording bird songs. To date, she has captured the calls and songs of 2,668 species of birds, or nearly 30% of the known species worldwide. She has traveled from her home in Greenwich, Connecticut to 50 countries around the globe in search of the sounds of the rarest birds in the world. And Ms. Macaulay's recordings, often obtained at great personal risk, have all been added to the Cornell University database. (Her husband William, a billionaire venture capitalist, accompanies her whenever possible. For him birding is a "quiet and relaxing" respite from the madding crowd. His monetary contributions to the Macaulay Library of Sound have been substantial.)

A Whitehead's Trogon, One Of The Species Whose Song Was first Recorded By Linda Macaulay.

The globe-trotting Ms. Macaulay's passion for capturing "first cuts," the term used for the initial recording of the sounds of a particular species, has taken her to parts of the world that tourists seldom see. In Rwanda she traipsed through waist deep swamps in search of the Shoebill. On another trip to Africa, in Gabon, she spelunked several caverns seeking the Gray-necked Rockfowl. Sometimes the challenges of her travel are not just geographical: in Papua, New Guinea she was surrounded by a band of men brandishing spears. In Ethiopia she braved the modern version of the same behavior: every man who had reached his teens carried an AK-47. With typical understatement Macaulay remarks that she and her husband "have a different risk profile than most people." All of this daring-do has paid off handsomely for the Library of Sound: Ms. Macaulay believes there are at least 10 species she alone has recorded, these include the Whitehead's Trogon from Borneo, and the Rust and Yellow Tanager from Argentina.

The Shoebill, Whose Song Was Recorded In The Swamps Of Rwanda.

On April 8, 2010 Linda Macaulay will be honored at the Paley Center for Media in New York City with Cornell's prestigious Arthur A. Allen Award (.pdf format), which honors ornithologists whose work specifically benefits the general public. She is particularly pleased to receive this recognition because she believes the free, online Library of Sound is a singular achievement: "A person in any country can access a bird sound digitally for free," she told Anne W. Semmes of the Greenwich Citizen. "It's like looking for a book -- you can go online and hear all the sounds... You don't have to be a scientist."

That should be music to the ears of laboratory-leery poets everywhere. And in case some versifiers still aren't sold on the poetical virtues of bird songs, (and in honor of April's status as National Poetry Month) this piece will close with a few examples of how the Lullaby of Birdland has freed some of our greatest writers to take wing and soar:


Stray Birds #1 by Rabindranath Tagore.


Stray birds of summer come to my window
to sing and fly away.
And yellow leaves of autumn,
which have no songs,
flutter and fall there with a sigh.

A Yellow-eared Toucanet, One Of Macaulay's Favorites Of The Birds She's Recorded.

Excerpt from: Mockingbirds by Mary Oliver.

This morning
two mockingbirds
in the green field
were spinning and tossing
the white ribbons
of their songs
into the air.
I had nothing
better to do
than listen.
I mean this
seriously.

Little Bird by An Anonymous Celtic Poet.

Little bird! O little bird!
I wonder at what thou doest,
Thou singing merry far from me,
I in sadness all alone!

Little bird! O little bird!
I wonder at how thou art
Thou high on the tips of branching boughs,
I on the ground a-creeping!

Little bird! O little bird!
Thou art music far away,
Like the tender croon of the mother loved
In the kindly sleep of death.

Excerpt from: Ode to Bird Watching by Pablo Neruda.

You can hear them
like a heavenly
rustle or movement.
They converse
with precision.
They repeat
their observations.
They brag
of how much they do.
They comment
on everything that exists.

A Rufous Whistler, Another Species Recorded by Linda Macaulay For The Library Of Sound.

For the House Sparrow, in Decline by Paul Farley.

Your numbers fall and it's tempting to think
you're deserting our suburbs and estates
like your cousins at Pompeii;
that when you return
to bathe in dust and build your nests again
in a roofless world where no one hears your cheeps,
only a starling's modem mimicry
will remind you of how you once supplied
the incidental music of our lives.


Excerpt From: Ode To A Skylark by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,
All that ever was Joyous, and clear,
and fresh, thy music doth surpass.

Teach us, Sprite or Bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.


Excerpt from: Caged Bird by Maya Angelou.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

An Eastern Nicator, One Of Linda Macaulay's Favorite African Songbirds.

Unknown Bird by W.S. Merwin.

Out of the dry days
through the dusty leaves
far across the valley
those few notes never
heard here before

one fluted phrase
floating over its
wandering secret
all at once wells up
somewhere else

and is gone before it
goes on fallen into
its own echo leaving
a hollow through the air
that is dry as before

where is it from
hardly anyone
seems to have noticed it
so far but who now
would have been listening

it is not native here
that may be the one
thing we are sure of
it came from somewhere
else perhaps alone

so keeps on calling for
no one who is here
hoping to be heard
by another of its own
unlikely origin

trying once more the same few
notes that began the song
of an oriole last heard
years ago in another
existence there

it goes again tell
no one it is here
foreign as we are
who are filling the days
with a sound of our own

The Gray-necked Rockfowl, Recorded In The Caves Of Gabon.

Excerpt from: Birds Of Passage by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

I hear the cry
Of their voices high
Falling dreamily through the sky,
But their forms I cannot see.

O, say not so!
Those sounds that flow
In murmurs of delight and woe
Come not from wings of birds.

They are the throngs
Of the poet's songs,
Murmurs of pleasures, and pains, and wrongs,
The sound of winged words.

This is the cry
Of souls, that high
On toiling, beating pinions, fly,
Seeking a warmer clime,

From their distant flight
Through realms of light
It falls into our world of night,
With the murmuring sound of rhyme.

The Elusive Iraq Babbler, Found In Syria On The Euphrates River.

To The Cuckoo by William Wordsworth.

O Blithe New-comer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice.
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?

While I am lying on the grass
Thy twofold shout I hear,
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off, and near.

Though babbling only to the Vale,
Of sunshine and of flowers,
Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.


Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery;

The same whom in my school-boy days
I listened to; that Cry
Which made me look a thousand ways
In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love;
Still longed for, never seen.

And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.

O blessed Bird! the earth we pace
Again appears to be
An unsubstantial, faery place;
That is fit home for Thee!

Posted by Nancy Mattoon at 12:06 AM