A Convergence of Birds: Original Fiction and Poetry Inspired by Joseph Cornell

A Convergence of Birds: Original Fiction and Poetry Inspired by Joseph Cornell





Writer and editor Jonathan Safran Foer fell in love with the work of Joseph Cornell as a young student and embarked on what initially seemed to be an impossibly ambitious project: to interest some of America's best-known authors to create original fiction and poetry inspired by the work of this beloved American artist. He selected the Bird Boxes that Cornell had constructed throughout his career and proceeded to write letters to authors Joyce Carol Oats, Robert Pinsky, Rick Moody, Howard Norman and others asking for their participation. Remarkably, 20 top contemporary writers and poets responded with enthusiasm, and "A Convergence of Birds: Original Fiction and Poetry Inspired by Joseph Cornell" is the magical and engaging result. Cornell's art-most of all, his three-dimensional boxes-attract museum audiences with an irresistible magnetism, because of their appeal to the imagination. His aviary series began with parakeets but soon came to include owls, cockatoos, and canaries, and finally, boxes without birds, perches sitting alone in an otherwise barren cage. Cornell's boxes demand our rapt attention, they invite us to peer inside, to perceive dimension and texture-but above all, they call on us to "respond." The literary works presented here do not only engage in a dialogue with the Bird Boxes-they demand that the reader inject themselves as a third voice in a conversation that seeks out the real within the imaginary and the fantastical within the everyday.

Beautifully designed and produced-with some 50 tipped-on color plates of the Bird Boxes some of which are reproduced here for the first time-this original literary anthology will please readers and art lovers alike. New writings by: Jonathan Safran Foer, Diane Ackerman, Martine Bellen, John Burghardt, Mary Caponegro, Robert Coover, Lydia Davis, Siri Hustvedt, Ann Lauterbach, Barry Lopez, Rick Moody, Bradford Morrow, Howard Norman, Joyce Carol Oates, Robert Pinsky, Erik Anderson Reece, Rosemarie Waldrop, Paul West, Diane Williams, John Yau.
Clothbound hardcover, 6 x 8.5 inches. 51 color illustrations









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