{"id":1121,"date":"2024-01-24T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-24T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/?p=1121"},"modified":"2024-01-21T13:58:48","modified_gmt":"2024-01-21T18:58:48","slug":"why-we-chose-it-do-not-hold-the-birds-by-carlene-kucharczyk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/why-we-chose-it-do-not-hold-the-birds-by-carlene-kucharczyk\/","title":{"rendered":"Why We Chose It: “Do Not Hold the Birds” by Carlene Kucharczyk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cDo Not Hold the Birds\u201d by Carlene Kucharczyk was selected for publication by Mid-American Review<\/em> poetry staff in Volume XLII, Number 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I read this poem, I can\u2019t help but think of those little workshops that Home Depot, Lowe\u2019s, and other home improvement retailers held back in the day. The ones kids would be dragged to by their parents on Saturday mornings. They\u2019d be handed planks of wood, hammers, nails, screws, and other tools they had no clue how to use. An aproned employee wearing a ball cap would walk everyone through how to build whatever was on the agenda for the day. Mothers, fathers, older siblings would do their best to reign in their little builders, trying to guide their soft hands, hoping they could complete the project, bring it home to show off to the rest of the family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes they\u2019d build birdhouses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And while they never turned out quite as expected, there was an element of unique beauty to each of the misaligned walls, the splotchy paint, the circular hole that wasn\u2019t exactly quite a circle, but worked all the same. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I like to think some of those birdhouses became homes to our little, winged companions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In \u201cDo Not Hold the Birds,\u201d Kucharczyk captures the beauty of creation, the synergy within the shared melody we have the opportunity to experience with nature. The poem acts as a guide for how to live in concourse with these earthly elements we\u2019re rather lucky to be in conversation with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The poem opens with the lines: \u201cDo not hold the birds, do not make \/ little homes of your hands, do not ache \/ into a man. He will be silent\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s something so gripping and enticing about the beginning of this poem. If we are not to hold the birds, then what are we to do? Kucharczyk responds to this question with ultimate grace and flowing language that tingles our poetic taste buds like a cup of coffee on an April morning out on the back porch\u2014the air buzzing with birdsong and other nice things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s most impressive about this piece is its subtle ability to subvert our expectations near the conclusion. We finally learn what we are to do with our hands, with the birds, and with our lives\u2013\u2013and we are better off because of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013\u2013Caleb Edmondson, Mid-American Review<\/em>  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cDo Not Hold the Birds\u201d by Carlene Kucharczyk was selected for publication by Mid-American Review poetry staff in Volume XLII, Number 1.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,37],"tags":[222,243,242,85,41,204,29],"class_list":["post-1121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","category-why-we-chose-it","tag-caleb-edmondson","tag-carlene-kucharczyk","tag-do-not-hold-the-birds","tag-mar","tag-mid-american-review","tag-poem","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1121"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1123,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121\/revisions\/1123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}