Ornithologies of Desire

"Psssssst. Literary critic Travis Mason has been outside watching birds and inside reading field guides, scientific articles, and biology textbooks. He approaches his subject of 'avian poetics' with a solid background in natural history and is therefore able to forge a scientifically grounded ecocriticism. 'Ornithologies of Desire' is an important new ecocritical study of birds, poetry, and Canadian literature. Most valuable of all, this book places contemporary Canadian poet Don McKay among the great North American nature writers. Mason's book will make you want to read McKay--and then go outside and watch birds." -- Cheryll Glotfelty, English Department, University of Nevada, Reno
"A new addition to a burgeoning Environmental Humanities series, Travis V. Mason's Ornithologies of Desire makes a significant contribution to ecocriticism in Canada. The book opens with the proposition that ecocriticism is able 'to read across genres and disciplines, to listen to many different stories, and to speak/write polyphonically.' Throughout, Mason works to prove his point by engaging in the cross-disciplinary, multi-vocal scholarship he proposes.... The result is a highly informative study that offers memorable new readings of McKay's well-known body of work.... McKay's work has never had such a detailed equipment of ornithological knowledge brought to bear upon it, and that in itself is enough to make the book a valuable resource. The study also snares a significant characteristic with the works of some other young ecological scholars in Canada, insofar as it blends scholarly and artistic form. Interspersed between the book's conventionally academic readings are three 'ecotones'--chapters that take up Mason's desire to merge ecocritical and poetic attention by narrating, and eventually versifying, his own critical enterprise. Through the self-relfexive persona of a character named BC (birder-critic), Mason presents an autobiographical account of his apprenticeship as a student of poetry and nature. Although referring to oneself in the third-person risks its own brand of self-service, the gesture is obviously meant as homage to McKay's signature blend of creative and critical styles. Mason joins a long tradition of writers who look to McKay as an example of conscientious thought and instruction, and Ornithologies is a substantial contribution to an emergent critical project of recognizing (and thereby helping to inscribe) McKay's definitive influence over the growth of eco-poetics and -criticism in Canada." -- Tina Northrup -- Canadian Literature, 281, Autumn 2013, 201406
"Mason's work allows readers to explore critical depths in the poetry of McKay and to understand how the trope of birding resonates. But more than that, Mason makes readers realize why bird poetry still matters in 21st-century poetics.... Recommended." -- K. Gale, University of Nebraska -- CHOICE, November 2013, 201312
"[This book's] dedication to exploring the ecological specificities of McKay's large body of work is likely to foster more nuanced readings of many of McKay's poems in the classroom and beyond." -- Terry Goldie, York University -- ESC (English Studies in Canada), 40.4, 201606
"In ecology that edge space [where] things edge up against each other and a "between" develops is the ecotone, a transitional area where two communities mingle and things thrive mightily-coyotes in large urban parks, for instance. Mason wants to write "an experiential criticism that flourishes in the space between thematics and theory, words and the world." PC [poet-critic] thinks a coyote criticism could be interesting. She wonders if Mason had something like that in mind when he wrote the essays called "Ecotones," one of which occurs at the end of each section of this book. She loves the shadowy bird tracks in the corner of the first pages of these pieces.... PC ... has begun to admire [the book's] ambition and reach. Mason allows himself to be taught by McKay's poems, struggling to think about the world through them, teasing out McKay's ideas to test them against his own thought and experiences. As a poet, PC finds this response moving.... PC is growing a bit panicky-she's used up most of her allotment of words but left so much out! What about the wonderful bibliography that includes field guides and birdwatchers' narratives, ornithological reports and literary studies? It will direct PC's reading for months or perhaps years to come. The "Bird Concordance," an appendix that records the appearances of specific birds in McKay's poetry, astonishes her.... And the index-PC is partial to good indexes-she used this one a lot as she tracked through the book. It never led her astray." -- Maureen Scott Harris -- The Goose, Volume 13, issue 1, August 2014