Customer Reviews

Convergence Of Birds: Original Fiction And Poetry Inspired By Joseph Cornell, A

5 star:		(3)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

I received this book from an old friend who I hadn't seen in nearly twenty years--she showed up unannounced, spent a few hours sitting in the sun, and then disappeared just as unexpectedly. I still don't know if she meant to leave the book behind, but I've decided that I won't give it up. Cornell's boxes have a strange beauty that seems to attract strange birds--deceptively simple, at first you barely realize how quickly you can slip into these lost, overlooked, forgotten worlds that seem to hum along according to an amusingly skewed logic. Many of the stories and poems show writers who've successfully crossed over and have sent back postcards filled with the fresh and unfamiliar voices of travellers far from home.

With it's tipped in plates and beautiful end papers I think this book is a bibliophile's dream. Being a big fan of Cornell's work I was very impressed and pleased with the overall packaging, which I find to be quite lovely, and the quality of the writing. Finally I was really impressed when I found out that the editor put it all together while he was still in college. I think this is a great book for fans of Joseph Cornell's boxes.

I'm a huge Joseph Cornell fan, and own every book that has anything to do with him. This is the best! Not only are the images beautiful and plentiful (and many new to me), but the stories and poems are so unbelievably entertaining and different from one another. I've never seen a book quite like this one, and I'm going to give a copy to everyone I know!

I too am a big fan of Joseph Cornell, and this sort of new book, A Convergence of Birds, is one that I was eager to read. The first short story, Emory Bear Hands' Birds, by Barry Lopez is powerful and worthy of being placed in this anthology. But the rest of the collection, pa-tooey. Even the Joyce Carol Oates contribution is suspiciously unworthy of publication. The rest of the pieces, both the poetry and short stories, are simply stream of consciousness junk writing that should never have found publication anywhere, least of all, in this beautiful-looking tribute to Cornell. Perhaps there are writer snobs "out there" who claim to understand this stuff, but once again I'm afraid the emperor is wandering around looking for his underwear.

... I was so psyched when I first saw the book, but then I noticed that many of the contributors to it--famous though they may be--pretty much just handed in whatever they had in the bottom of their drawers for this collection. I don't know that for a fact, but it seems that way. The poems and stories in here are vapid, lacking any of the kind of creative formal risks that Cornell and his boxes are known. Add to this the fact that the editor included one of his own stories in the anthology (alongside the famous chaps) .... WAy over priced too, I'd say. I can't recommend it. The book offended me in fact.