Under logs and rocks, near lakes and ponds, salamanders live secret, slimy lives. From woodlands to vernal ponds salamanders take up residence, eating pests, spawning young, and repelling predators with their bright coloring and patterns. This chapbook is in dedication to salamanders. It is a plea for better care of their habitats, and it sings praise for the environment that nurtures them.
Songs for Salamanders features the work of eight poets from around the world. It is one of four chapbooks dedicated to New England animals in need. This set of chapbooks invites the reader to look closer at their environment. To hold their breath and listen to the summer sounds of cicada song. To overturn logs and rocks in search of salamanders in the leaf-litter. To peer from a safe distance at the blur of legs that carry a plover along the shoreline. And to strain eyes against the dusk and spot the silhouette of a flapping bat. These poems invite others to write of their own encounters, to see our relationship with animals not as a meeting of two separate worlds, but of one world of symbiotic experiences.
Contents:
“Aquashicola” by Blake Campbell
“Under Each Brick” by Jessica Conway
“Ambystoma laterale” by William Doreski
“Salamander Pantoum” by Marnie Heenan
“Radio Telescope” by Rodger Martin
“One log per visit, never the same log twice” by Susan Edwards Richmond
“Seasons” by Joanna Williams
“Festival” by Emily Wheeler
