SAINT JULIAN PRESS

LIKE A BIRD WITH A THOUSAND WINGS

By Melissa Studdard

WHEN THE BIRDSONG RINGS HUMAN

PROLOGUE
​

Led by the hoopoe bird, the birds of the world form a flock to seek their king, the divine and mysterious Simorgh, who resides at the other end of the earth.

Cover & Interior Art by Elisa Vendramin

If Simorgh unveils its face to you, you will find
that all the birds, be they thirty or forty or more,
are but the shadows cast by that unveiling.
What shadow is ever separated from its maker?
Do you see?
The shadow and its maker are one and the same,
so get over surfaces and delve into mysteries.
​

Attãr
Translated by Sholeh Wolpé

WHEN THE BIRDSONG RINGS HUMAN
​By Melissa Studdard
​


​the hoopoe bird forgets its tongue, like a time traveler
accidentally leaving a glove in a year that hasn’t
happened. The tongue wanders strange gray
streets, its sour and sweet buds lit up
with the hoopoe’s hunger, glowing like a jellyfish
in the rain. Now the tongue knows no house can
promise safety. Not the sheath of mouth. Not even
the body, which laughs at the body of time, stretched
like a poolside lizard across dimensions. The tongue
bellows for the hoopoe across the green. The
hoopoe hears what he thinks is an echo—not
blazing, but persistent, ever-present, a little fuzzy,
like a radio that’s not coming in well or the hum
and buzz of the streetlamps and telephone wires
he knew in that other world. Everything
the bird means to say turns ancient at the root
and falls off. Because God is not a clock, nor a sundial,
reaching forward with narrow arms. God is a million
tiny pieces, like glitter, or destiny, breaking flesh
into astonishment, breaking pain into daggers of light.

“When the Birdsong Rings Human,” was originally published in the New England Review.

Cover & Interior Art by Elisa Vendramin

Press Release

Artists Page

Publication Date: April 3, 2020 
Paperback in Color: $20.00
ISBN: 978-1-7330233-1-3
Number of pages: 80
For an advance copy contact Saint Julian Press.

Special Thanks to Sholeh Wolpé for her Translations

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