Commonwealth of Wings: An Ornithological Biography Based on the Life of John James Audubon

Notes / Bibliography

Notes The information upon which this book is based comes from the works listed in the bibliography, especially from Herrick and from Audubon's journals. While I worked from historical accounts, I did not primarily intend to write history. Many of the incidents and thoughts in the poems are fictional; others are inventions around a bare fact; and some of the poems are assembled from material I read and recast in my own language. Occasionally I have quoted or paraphrased Audubon or his biographers, as detailed below. My goal was that my language take on the color of Audubon's so that the reader would find the poems seamless. Q U O T E D from Adams: lines 4-5, 8-n of "Losses" (i) from Audubon, Ornith. Bio: my subtitle; 1.27 of "At Coueron" from Deloup: 1.15 of "At Ease" from Ford, Audubonby Himself. "Billy . . . ducks" in "Reprise" (2), reported as Audubon's last words from Ford, 1826: much of "Spirits," except 11.9-14 ("No, I will not . . . of my mother"; "No one . . . companion" and "My style puzzles" from "Letter to Lucy" (3); 11. 2-10 of "From My Journal"; 11. 10 and 13 of "Etude" from Herrick, v. i: epigraph; 1. 20 of "Disaster"; "Joseph . . . parting" of "Losses" (i) from Herrick, v. 2: 11.11-12 of "Inventory. Journal." from Proby: "Beneath . . . repellent" in "Wreck" A D A P T E D O R P A R A P H R A S E D from Adams: last line of "At Ease"; 11.16-19 of "Letter to Lucy" (2) from Audubon, Ornith. Bio:11. 7-9 of "Losses" (2) from Maria Audubon: 11.13—15 of "Portraits"; stanzas 2, 3, 5 of "Inventory. Journal." from Corning: 11. 30-34 from "Letter to Victor"; "electric . . . vigilant" of "I Am Restless" from Ford, Audubon by Himself. "Risen . . . world" in 1. i of "A Profitable Life" from Ford, 1826: 11. 17-23 of "From My Journal"; "I feel . . . walk" of "Interlude" 59 from Herrick, v. i: 11. i, 10-21, 26 of "Journal, at Sea"; 11. 12-13 of "Letter to Victor" from Proby, passim: in 11. 8—42 "Reprise" (i). "Edinburgh" was adapted from three sources: Adams; Ford, 1826; Herrick, v. i. Bibliography Alexander B. Adams, John James Audubon. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1966. John James Audubon, Ornithological Biography. New. New York: Abbeville Press, 1985. Maria R. Audubon, Audubon and hisJournals. New York: Dover Publications , 1986. (Unabridged rcpublication of Dover edition of 1960; first edition, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1897). Howard Corning, cd., Letters ofJohn James Audubon, 1826—1840. New York: Kraus Reprint Co., 1969. Rene Deloup, ed., Vieilles Chansons et Rondes Francises. Paris: Editions Max Eschig, 1939. Alice Ford, ed., Audubon, by Himself. Garden City, NY: Natural History Press, 1969. , The 1826 Journal of John James Audubon. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1967. Francis Hobart Herrick, Audubon the Naturalist, 2 vols. New York: Dover Publications, 1968. Kathryn Hall Proby, Audubon in Florida. Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press, 1968. Twelve Popular Old Rounds of France Brought Out Anewfor the Enjoyment of Children and the Delight of Simple Souls. Boston: Boston Music Company, 1917. 60 This page intentionally left blank U N I V E R S I T Y PRESS OF NEW E N G L A N D publishes books under its own imprint and is the publisher for Brandeis University Press, Brown University Press, Clark University Press, University of Connecticut, Dartmouth College, Middlebury College Press, University of New Hampshire, University of Rhode Island, Tufts University, University of Vermont, and Wesleyan University Press. ABOUT THE A U T H O R Pamela Alexander won the Yale Younger Poet award in 1984 for Navigable Waterways (1985) and has published poems in the New Yorker and Atlantic. After writing short persona poems on Amelia Earhardt and Howard Hughes, she says, "I had an urge to write longer poems about unusual people." Her interest in Audubon dates in part from childhood, when her mother, a veteran birder, "talked to me about ecology decades before the word was commonly used." She currently teaches in the Writing Program at the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Alexander, Pamela, 1948Commonwealth of wings : an ornithological biography based on the life of John James Audubon/Pamela Alexander. p. cm. ISBN 0-8195-2191-4. — ISBN 0-8195-1193-5 (pbk.) I. Audubon...