![\"kimiko-hahn.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/kimiko-hahn.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nLarge, flightless, and defenseless,
\nthe great auk was captured
\nfor feathers for featherbeds—
\nhunters loosening the plumage in cauldrons
\nfueled with the oil
\nfrom the freshly killed auks before them.
\nAfter the 1830 volcanic eruptions in Iceland, after
\nmuseums and collectors vied for the near
\nextinct “penguin of the North,”
\nin 1844, the last pair was beaten to their deaths
\nand their solitary egg dashed on the rocks of Eldey Island.
\nCould we not sleep on straw or goose-down?
\nWhat dreams are worth such extinction?
\nAnd are they dreams I’d wish to own?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nToxic Flora<\/i><\/a> is the eighth collection of poems from Kimiko Hahn; other poems from the collection include “Cope’s Rule<\/a>” (from W.W. Norton’s Poets Out Loud<\/i> site), “The Fever<\/a>” (The New Yorker<\/i>), “Xenicus Longipes<\/a>” (Poetry Daily<\/i>), “The Sweetwater Caverns<\/a>” (Academy of American Poets), and “Bumblebees<\/a>” (OnEarth<\/i>).<\/p>\n
In an interview with Bomb<\/i><\/a>, Hahn talks about using stories from the science section of the New York Times<\/i> as inspiration: “All my material issues from deep and very personal concerns whether it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s for girls to be able to express anger or the melting of glaciers. I am both a poet who writes about what moves me—but I am also a citizen who has opinions.” Further explanation comes from an interview with the Wall Street Journal<\/i><\/a>: “I grew up in a family of artists not scientists, so for me the language of science is very exotic, the way Japanese words might be exotic for someone else. So that exotic interesting language is what immediately triggers excitement in me. And then understanding what these concepts are and trying to be clear about the concepts but at the same time figuring out what that has to do with my life both literally and figuratively, that is to say in terms of metaphor. So science articles and issues have been percolating and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m very proud of how chiseled the poems are and I hope they honor the original essays that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve drawn from.” Finally, in an essay for Poets Out Loud<\/i>, Hahn offers insight into the sequencing of poems<\/a> in the collection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Large, flightless, and defenseless, the great auk was captured for feathers for featherbeds— hunters loosening the plumage in cauldrons fueled with the oil from the freshly killed auks before them. After the 1830 volcanic eruptions in Iceland, after museums and collectors vied for the near extinct “penguin of the North,” in 1844, the last pair […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}