Green Bee-eater – a poem from Tiger Girl

Tiger Girl will now be published by Bloodaxe on 3rd September 2020, postponed from June because of Covid-19, and in the lead-up I will post occasional poems from the book, together with photos of the Indian wildlife they celebrate. This is the green bee-eater, elusive to the lens, but captured here by my beloved (even his tongue!) when we were in Bandhavgarh National Park in Madhya Pradesh, this time last year – what a contrast to this year! But the birdlife there is matched by the wonders that visit our garden in Cornwall this May, every day bullfinches, goldfinches, greater spotted woodpeckers, dunnocks, nuthatches, collared doves, blackbirds, and many many more, come to feed here. It is a rainforest lush with ferns and nettles and wildflowers. It has been a memorable lockdown, and continues to be. 

I wrote 'Green Bee-eater', out of fascination for this masked forest in miniature, and prompted by coming across his song being described as a "tree-tree-tree". I was so happy that Poetry magazine published it in the April 2020 issue, along with 'Swamp Deer', thank you editors. There are a number of short bird and deer poems threaded through Tiger Girl, and I hope this one offers us some hope. 

Green Bee-eater

More precious than all
the gems of Jaipur –

the green bee-eater.

If you see one singing
tree-tree-tree

with his space-black bill
and rufous cap,

his robes
all shades of emerald

like treetops glimpsed
from a plane,

his blue cheeks,
black eye-mask

and the delicate tail streamer
like a plume of smoke –

you might dream
of the forests

that once clothed
our flying planet.

And perhaps his singing
is a spell

to call our forests back –

tree
      by tree
                 by tree.
 

Mama Amazonica goes Into the Forest for BBC Radio 3's The Verb

To research for Mama Amazonica (Bloodaxe Books, 2017) I went to the Peruvian Amazon twice, once in the wet season and once in the dry. Tonight, I talk about my book on Radio 3's The Verb, with a gang of forest-lovers – the poet Claire Trévien, Kate Arnold on her dulcimer – lead of the group 'Fear of the Forest', Terry Deary, Jack Bernhardt, and our host Ian McMillan. It was a bit nerve-racking but Ian kept us amused and we had fun. I must admit I was thrilled to be chatting about one of my very favourite things – forests! The Amazon rainforest in my case, that very endangered, dangerous, but wondrous place. Mama Amazonica is immersed in it, but is also my mentally ill mother, a double exposure where love floresces. It's just over a year since the book came out and I've been extremely lucky that in May it won the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2018 – an award given for a book evoking the spirit of place. Here are just a few pics I took in Tambopata National Reserve, though the birds – jacamar, king vultures and blue-and-gold macaws, and the spectacled caiman, are taken by my husband Brian. 

 

Fauverie now available to pre-order from Amazon

Fauverie – my sixth collection – is now available to pre-order from Amazon and will be published on 2 September by Seren.

Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1781721688
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/Fauverie-Pascale-Petit/dp/1781721688/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404979933&sr=1-1&keywords=fauverie

Here is the front cover, featuring Aramis the black jaguar, designed and painted by Dragana Nikolic, and a starry sky back cover.

The book is a follow-up to my second collection The Zoo Father.
Here are sample poems http://pascalepetit.blogspot.co.uk/p/fauverie.html

"The Fauverie of this book is the big-cat house in the Jardin des Plantes zoo. But the word also evokes the Fauves, 'primitive' painters who used raw colour straight from the tube. Like The Zoo Father, Petit's acclaimed second collection, this volume has childhood trauma and a dying father at its heart, while Paris takes centre stage – a city savage as the Amazon, haunted by Aramis the black jaguar and a menagerie of wild animals. Transforming childhood horrors to ultimately mourn a lost parent, Fauverie redeems the darker forces of human nature while celebrating the ferocity and grace of endangered species."