Description

 

The Sound of Water

by Shawn Pittard

The title of this collection is drawn from Basho’s timeless poem, “Old Pond,” in which we hear a frog create the sound of water. Pittard follows that sound from his local rivers to the Alaskan wilderness. He explores wild places and the wildness that still thrives in city spaces, celebrates the beauty and resilience of our natural world, admires its great migrations, respects its tragic cruelties. These poems teem with life—bantering geese, dabbling ducks, blackberries and bees, rattlesnakes entangled in a courtship dance, thin coyotes. We humans share space with them, we endure drought and fires together, grow up and grow old in their presence.

 

Early Praise

The poems in Shawn Pittard’s newest collection continue on the path of the naturalist shaman, who finds the sacred in the everyday, the spiritual in the air around us—who sees “voices in the wind” and who hears the silences hidden in each moment as prayers embedded in the world around us—in the beauty, the terror, the uncertainties of tomorrow—in “a goldfield of wildflowers / under a bluebird sky.

—Susan Kelly-DeWitt, author of Frangible Operas

 In The Sound of Water, the final volume of his chapbook trilogy, Shawn Pittard is at the height of his powers: a poet-citizen of the wild, sustained by its marvels and mysteries, whether it be encountering a loose formation of geese casting its ancient shadow // on commuters’ cars / crossing the bridge or walking in wolf tracks on the floodplains of Alaska’s Tsiu River. Mapping an expansive interior/exterior landscape, Pittard’s poems offer readers a sacred communion, inviting us to take our place alongside our animal kin and bask in the quiet dazzle and warmth of his words.

—Moira Magneson, author of Eye of the Elephant

Shawn Pittard’s poems take you places. His urban rivers are conduits, reminding us that there is more going on than mundane city life— more going on beneath the frenzy of commuter traffic coursing over bridges. Step into the riffles where steelhead feast on orange roe below the salmon’s spawn. Listen to the banter of migrating geese. Conjure a father and two prodigal sons sorting fishing gear on the tailgate of a pickup truck. Let memories pull at the stones beneath your feet.

—Danyen Powell, author of Seeing Again

 

About the Author

Shawn Pittard is the author of four slender volumes of poetry: Shelter in Place from The Poetry Box; Witness, which was a Finalist in The Poetry Box 2024 chapbook contest; Standing in the River, which was the winner of Tebot Bach’s 2010 Clockwise Chapbook Competition; and These Rivers from Rattlesnake Press. His poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and featured at American Life in Poetry. He’s been a coach for Poetry Out Loud and a California Poet in the Schools, taught recitation and writing in middle schools and high schools, including juvenile hall (yep, they’re good kids), as well as with veterans and the men in Folsom Prison. By day, he labored in the field of environmental protection, planning, and public policy, focusing on energy.