Mudsong by Oregon poet: Michael Spring

Mudsong (Pygmy Forest Press)

Michael Spring's second book of poetry is now available!

Mudsong has been nominated for several book awards, including: The American Book Award, The Levis Reading Prize, the Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award, The Oregon Book Award, the PNBA Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize.

$12.00 for first book/ $10 for additional copies(please include 2.50/shipping for first book; $1.00 for each additional book)

checks or money orders to:

Michael Spring
POBox 692
O'Brien, OR 97534



SAMPLE POEMS:


mud song

I walked past the Oregon ash
and cattails
through the soggy fields
of tufted hairgrass

to slow my thoughts
on cobra lilies and sphagnum moss

I've decided
I'm going to dedicate my life
to this field
and to its swamps and bogs

I'm finally listening
to the prophet of worms
and the gospel of mycelium and rock –
and there the turtle's mantra –

and there the song that mud makes!
it rises like fog through my body

I'm on my hands and knees
watching as they disappear into the mud

I'm changing into a bear
or a stump or clump of berries –
no, I'm changing into a root
or tongue or tentacle



**********



serpentine

I have climbed
into the highest branches
of the madrona

the serpentine
landscape below
shimmers green
in the sunlight

I imagine this old
ocean floor
burning and hissing
in its youth –
twisting and stabbing
for open sky –
like creatures that followed
it developed
scales and
sharp ridged spines

I look over the vast
forest –
fir and pine
billow in the gusting wind –

I hold on tight
as I am suddenly
washed
by leaves in the current

I close my eyes –
somewhere inside of me
the serpentine landscape
slides under the streets and rivers –
under the mountains
and oceans – making itself
a home – stretching out long
like sleep




**********



the cry

just when I sat down to write
the child’s cry began on the other side
of the swollen creek, inside one
of the apartment windows

it cut through all other sounds, tearing
through the rustle of leaves
and wrinkling the song of birds

I tried to ignore it, but then it landed
on my notebook – it was exhausted, sobbing, hungry --
the scree and pitch of the water’s voice
was tangled in its hair

so I gave in
and allowed it to feed on my writing
I allowed it to devour all the words it wanted
until it was stuffed
burping and gurgling and spitting up words
until it became a stanza all to itself

that is when I decided to rewrite it
do what was best for the cry
I gave it wings -- huge floppy butterfly wings--
then nudged it into the air

I watched it flap languidly –
a heavy sigh -- a sleepy breath -- floating
back towards the darkening windows




**********



music of the fairies


perhaps it was the song
of a seal or whale
somehow escaping
from the surging breakers
against the rocky beaches

whether it was the music
of fairies or not
it was of the earth
and swarmed
in the Blasket fiddler’s head –
the music swelled
like a thousand year growth
of orchids on bog moss
suddenly blossoming

and that is why he bundled
the notes
like thatch
and went to his fiddle like a trimmer
shaping the sounds
into the voices he heard
that day he sailed
around the Blasket Islands

and when he finally found his way
to County Kerry
his bow and fingers
barbed into the enchanted music
he walked the country roads

and when he played
the farmers sang with the cows
and the peat cutters
danced with their tools

and the cabbages
and potatoes and turnips bloated
and the grassy hills swayed
as if underwater

and in the fabled cromlech
of Morrigú
old stones stood up
and flew away as crows

and the bogs lit up like moons



**********



salsa fields

from this field
you handed me a red pepper
bruised
purple on one side

I pressed my fingers
against the bruise
until it was a hole
then slipped
my tongue inside

I could feel
the clusters of seeds --
the constellations of sting --

I looked up and saw
the evening's first star
swimming in the darknss
of your eyes --
the night
will never be a lonely place

blurbs

In poems made of muck, time, magic and jazz, Michael Spring’s Mudsong reminds us that nature, ours and the world’s, is at once organic and mysterious. Spring’s art celebrates by paying attention--by resolving to slow down, be somewhere in particular and listen and look. With nods to Pierre Bonnard, Ornette Coleman and Mary Oliver, among others, the poems in Mudsong sing human with “the music…of the earth.”

Lex Runciman




Michael Spring addresses the connection between human consciousness and "the serpentine landscape." He is walking side by side with Ovid, Jung, Hermes Trismegistus: Did the Great Fall truly alienate us? Or, as Spring suggests, is there an ageless link between humanity and "the gospel of mycelium and rock," an energy accessible only to those who can "become the ground." This is a stellar collection, dramatically envisioned, beautifully crafted.


John Amen
Editor of The Pedestal Magazine




Michael Spring’s first book, Blue Crow, plunges the reader instantly into a world that is the everyday heightened with sensuous awareness, charged with visionary intensity, held from melting by a gently mocking irony. Poem after poem does this with a spare but precise language and perfect timing. Spring’s new poems in Mudsong are songs of metamorphosis--the poet feels so acutely the natural and human lives around him that he enters them, or they possess him.


Eleanor Berry
President of the Oregon State Poetry Association




Michael Spring's poems are strong and tender. Whether waxing of the natural world, his children, or his astute erotica, his is a voice that needs to be heard. These poems are passionate, compassionate, and wise. I recommend his powerful work.


Leonard Cirino

about the author

Michael Spring lives in O'Brien, Oregon. He is a martial arts instructor, poetry editor, visual artist, and natural builder (particularly with cob). For the past 20 years Michael has dedicated himself to publishing, promoting and coordinating literary events for such venues as the da Vinci Days Festival (Corvallis, OR); and most recently for The Blue Moon Cafe (Cave Junction, OR).

He currently edits RIVEN Poetry Journal (with poet Eric Dickey), and The Blue Moon Café Review. In 2000, he was the writer-in-residence for Fishtrap in Wallowa County, OR. His poems have appeared in numerous publications; including: Atlanta Review, Chiron Review, Dublin Quarterly, The Midwest Quarterly, NEO, The New Imagist, Paris/Atlantic, and The Pedestal Magazine.

His first book, blue crow, was published by Lit Pot Press, Inc., 2003. blue crow has recently been translated into Portuguese and is being prepared to appear as a bilingual edition by The University of the Azores and Brown University. blue crow was nominated for several awards, including The American Book Aawrd, The Norma Farber First Book Award, and the Oregon Book Award. Michael has been awarded several prizes for poetry, including The 2004 Robert Graves Award (Imago Poetry/UK).

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visit the link below to view sample poems that appear in Mudsong

link to sample poems

michael spring poetry page
Mudsong review - the pedestal magazine
Deborah Dawson artwork