About the Book
Birds of the Midwest is a collection of poems inspired by the author's native habitat, the Midwestern United States. Based on careful observation of the natural world, the poems reflect recurring themes of liminal space and transition. Topics include the changing seasons, the water's edge, and bird migration. The poet's search for truth grows naturally from her detailed studies of plovers, owls, warblers, robins and their human companions. With sly humor and insight, these poems soar toward the eternal, singing a hymn of wonder. Calm and thoughtful, this book offers the solace of a walk in the woods on a June morning with a friend. Recommended for bird lovers, as well as for those who wouldn't know a finch from a falcon. The reader will experience their own interconnectedness with nature in new ways.
About the Author :
Hufford Downes has enjoyed writing poetry since the age of six. After a career as anarchitectural writer and editor and a freelance writer, she began writing poetry seriously.Publishing credits include poetry, essays, and fiction, as well as articles for magazines andnewspapers, She also enjoys leading poetry and writing workshops. She studied CreativeWriting at the University of Toledo and currently studies poetry at The Loft Literary Center inMinneapolis. Previous poetry collections include What I Assume and Notes Between Friends.While writing is a lifelong passion, birding is a relatively new Interest. Seven years ago, Hufford Downes started using a wheelchair. Besides the obvious challenges, it opened up awhole new world. Hitting the trails in her wheelchair, she traveled more slowly, looked up, andnoticed birds, She was soon an obsessed birder.The poet's work has appeared in journals and anthologies, and won local and nationalawards. In 2021, Hufford Downes was awarded first place for narrative poetry from theSouthern Minnesota Poets Society. She was awarded first place for the Florence HynesWillette Award for Humor in Poetry (2019) and placed first in South MN Poets Society contestfor Narrative Poetry (2020) Her first published poem appeared in Good HousekeepingMagazine, Jane was awarded the Grand Prize for Ekphrasis Poetry by The Toledo ArtsCommission. Winning first prize in a poetry contest for Quilt World Magazine led to theassignment of writing a poem about quilting in every issue of the magazine for over fiveyears. The poet received awards from the League of Minnesota Poets in each of the last sixyears.When not writing or birding, Hufford Downes enjoys jazz and symphonic music, especiallyconcerts in Twin Cities parks, where music is often accompanied by birdsong. An avid reader, she is active in community writing and literacy activities, including volunteering as a tutor in anAdult ESL/GED program. Concerned about climate change, she is active in local water qualityinitiatives and other ecological action. Her family includes her husband of 45 years, adaughter and son-in-law, and four of the most exceptional grandchildren on the planet.Hufford Downes has lived in Ohio and Michigan, and currently calls Hopkins, Minnesotahome. She enjoys birding throughout the Midwest. Her favorite birding spots include HawkRidge in Duluth, Elm Creek Nature Preserve and other parks in the Three Rivers ParkDistrict, Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge, Old Cedar Avenue Bridge Park, the MississippiRiver Watershed, the Minnesota River Watershed, the Maumee River Watershed, MageeMarsh Wildlife Area and Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge, especially during "The BiggestWeek in American Birding." She is a big fan of the highly accessible regional trail system inthe Twin Cities Metro area.
Review :
In Birds of the Midwest, poet Jane Hufford Downes reminds us that "[n]ature only asks that we love / by paying attention." And, indeed, these poems-careful observations of warblers, cranes, and robins who refuse to leave their home in winter-sing a hymn of wonder. Hufford Downes writes with precision. Her images are exact and arresting; her metaphors open new doorways between our "mud-bound" existence and the bird, who's free to "hurl[] herself into the wind." With a wisdom grounded in both the earth and our own impermanence, Hufford Downes watches the birds to learn how to live. Birds of the Midwest is a salve. -Ranae Lenor Hanson, author of Watershed: Attending to Body and Earth in Distress
Readers of "Birds of the Midwest" will live more deeply today, chart their paths more graciously toward forever. The 23 lyrical poems in Jane Hufford Downes's collection fly toward the eternal by focusing on detail. Reminding readers that "crows colonize the edges," she meditates on hummingbirds and warblers who dip and dive among the ubiquitous crows. Nature, Downes says, "asks that we love/ by paying attention." Steeped in specifics, the poems open into gentle, humor-threaded philosophy: "things change, sometimes even for the better." Downes describes her wheelchair "mud-bound to Earth"; later, she writes, "On some future day, I will return. A particle of dust becoming prairie, whispering in the breeze, nurturing clover which feeds the buzz and lift of a bumblebee, and who, in turn, becomes lunch for a crow." Mud-bound ourselves, we readers lift off with Downes and her birds. -Chelsea B. DesAutels, author of A Dangerous Place
Jane Hufford Downes focuses her attention in this collection on the delights and mysteries of bird life. As she explores their origin in dinosaurs, the wonders of their migration "chasing the northern edge of spring," and the "absurd beauty of the world," she seeks-and finds-"music that resonates in your bones." Anyone who enjoys the natural world, and birding in particular, is sure to find treasures within this volume. -Julie Cadwallader Staub, author of Wing Over Wing: Poems, Paraclete Press, 2019
Bird watching requires the same sort of patient attention as writing poetry. In this collection of poems, Jane Downes displays how she has cultivated the skills of careful observation and stillness needed for both. Through her writing, she has done what the Great Mother asks birds to do: "listen to the Silence / until music resonates in your bones." The poet's quest for big human truths grows naturally from her detailed studies of birds: their flight and apparent freedom, their resilience as they "hurl (themselves) into the wind," their indomitable spirit and the way they "accept resurrection." She blends science with prayer, allowing what she learns from birds to show the reader glimpses of the unknowable. Though she is "mud-bound to Earth," for Ms. Downes, birds have become "magical prophets, fallen angels, messengers of gods" who can lift us up if we take the time to pay attention. This is a writer for whom a wingtip can be the center of the universe, what is improbable can also be true, and awe is something that helps us endure. Reading these poems reminds me of birdsong itself-a mysterious language that somehow speaks of hope. -Joanne Esser, author of the poetry collections Humming at the Dinner Table and I Have Always Wanted Lightning
