“Less than this my lone path is: / a deermouse track in winter’s snow— / less than any mark of hare or crow.” // August Derleth, “Man Track Here”

From Editor Jonathan Wooding:

Welcome to the second issue of the recently-revived Hawk & Whippoorwill. Here you will find poems that tie the places we live in to the lives and temperaments of the inhabitants; here are moments of nature becoming a window into life; here, human landscapes are made strange by what we perceive as the intrusions of other animals. These thoughts catch me at the moment, writing, as I often do these days, in an online word-processing application. We tend to forget that while humans can create materials, forms, and whole environments not found in nature—and new digital environments daily grow around us—nature still holds the keys to understanding our species. Able to think outside and beyond it, we are as yet learning from (and, therefore, beholden to) the natural world.

Lodged as we are between the organic and the inorganic, we are not always conscious of our place. something like the unexpected presence of another species has to awaken us to the strangeness of it. Even then, the thought that stuns us is not apt to be how improbable the current state of the species seems, but instead what they are doing here, or anywhere: as though they were intruders. I have our poets to thank for these reflections and for their submissions; gathered here, their work helps us in our ongoing recognition of such ideas. These thoughts demonstrate the depth of August Derleth's original theme for the journal as well as the breadth of its potential. Nature poetry speaks, as always, to the deepest persistent concerns of humanity.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Michael P. McManus, Watcher
• Samantha Mineo Myers, Viburnum
• E.P. Schultz, Gijik Marsh
• Todd Boss, The God of Our Farm Had Blades
• Nora Clark Liassis, Memorial Service
• John Miller, two poems: To the Apartment Complex Laundry Room; and Marginal
• Amy MacLennan, Coastsiders
• Margaret Bashaar, The Girl Who Lives in Caves
• Tom Sheehan, two poems: From Nahant, Atlantic Rub, Pacific Skip; and Rubble, Barn Style
• Stan Long, Cathedral Grove
• Catherine Chandler, Dandelion
• Jeffrey Warzecha, Looking for Frost’s Woodpile
• Some New & Recommended Reading
• Art: ‘White-footed mice & red oak acorns’, rubbing of a bronze tile by Nancy Webb.

>> Click here to download the entire issue as a single PDF.

This issue was edited by Jonathan Wooding, with Zachary Bos, Sean Campbell, Nora Delaney, Katherine Evans, and Daniel Pritchard. © 2008. All rights reserved by contributors and editors for their respective work. Texts may not be reproduced other than for personal or academic use without written permission of the author or editor. Reviewers are encouraged to excerpt when reviewing.