Table of Elements
The Rail of Silence—Mountains
A Vast Nest—Animals
Extra Terra—Visitations
Elementals—Trees and More
Speak the Lake—Bodies of Water
Plus:
Prologos—Invocation
Epilogos—Muse-ic Coda
Interlogos sections—Love Poems
Dancing Mockingbird, a book of sixty poems, was released by Kelsay Books in February 2022.
These lyrical poems offer visions of intimate, and even sometimes transcendental, encounters with the natural world, in the “spoken cadences of an authentic voice,” as the writer John Elder has put it. Embedded between these sections are love poems that reflect the same sensory richness. These poems stand alongside the work of Mary Oliver, Gary Snyder, or the short fiction of Barry Lopez as loving meditations on the human romance between people and place.
Eight of the poems have been published in various journals. You can read some of them here.
Reviews
“Sincere and intense . . . a very beautiful language.”—5-Star review by Emily-Jane Hill Orford, for Readers Favorite. Click here to read the review below. Click the link for the Readers Favorite site.
Order the Book—Retail Price $16.50
Amazon: Order Dancing Mockingbird on Amazon.com.
Bookshop.org: Order Dancing Mockingbird from Bookshop.org. Bookshop.org offers an alternative to amazon.com for online book sales: part of the proceeds from each sale go to a local independent bookstore of my choice.
AbeBooks: Order Dancing Mockingbird from AbeBooks. AbeBooks offers an alternative to amazon.com for online book sales and the books is available from them at a slight discount.
Kelsay Books: Order from Kelsay Books.
Directly from me: You can order Dancing Mockingbird directly from me at sddavison[at]icloud[dot]com. and pay via PayPal. Remember to include your mailing address and the number of copies you want. Note, also, that I have to charge sales tax of $1.09 and my shipping cost is $3.19, which brings the total cost to $20.78.
Reviews
Emily-Jane Hills Orford, 5 Stars—Readers Favorite
Nature is very spiritual – musically so. The birds, the trees, the rivers and the sand, they all sing and dance to a special tune of life. Steven Dale Davison reflects on the spiritualism of all that nature has to offer in his collection of poems, Dancing Mockingbird. His words have a deeper meaning ensconced in a rubric that measures his sense of place in a world far more beautiful than anyone can imagine. The poet’s world is words, spiritual words that define the essence of place, “a myriad manifestation/ of earth and air,/ water and sun,/ all dancing in the One.” Where there’s dancing, there’s music and the natural world is full of music, just as the poet is full of words, spiritual words, expressive words, words that define and place the poet and the reader in one sublimely unique place.
Steven Dale Davison’s poetry collection, Dancing Mockingbird, explores one poet’s perspective of the world around him. His words are sincere and intense, as he lures the reader into a symphony of sounds, sights, visions and so much more. The poet shares his musings in a voice that is both lyrical and sensitive. His poems are mostly free verse, but his use of metaphors is classic: “Thick fog denses a pirouette in freeze-time./ Sound and distance founder, lost in mist and soft, dark air.” He’s writing sound poems, poetry that has its own sound-induced lyricism, both intimate and reflective. The poet has a powerful command of language, a very beautiful language. This collection is something to be savored many times over, and each time a new thought will reconnect the reader to the poet and the words on the page. Very intense and thought-provoking.