Spotlight series #100 : Nate Logan

Curated by Canadian writer, editor and publisher rob mclennan, the “spotlight” series appears the first Monday of every month.

STATEMENT

I don’t know what poet said it first (or was it a butter sculptor?), but I agree with the philosophy that knowing too much about your own craft risks danger. In general, people swipe left on mystery and swipe right on certainty. This is why there are a plethora of Internet sleuths still trying to figure out the ending of John Carpenter’s The Thing.

What I can say definitively is that the “Lord God bird” in this poem refers to the ivory-billed woodpecker, proposed to be extinct by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in 2021. As of 2023, the USFWS has not made a final decision on the bird’s status, as public comment suggests the species may not be extinct.

POEM THAT ENDS WITH A BIRD

You dollop sunscreen on my nose and I dollop sunscreen on your nose.

We reexamine the long list of bad omens.

Let’s agree that “Lord God bird” is a little excessive.

Nate Logan is the author of Wrong Horse (Moria Books, 2024) and Inside the Golden Days of Missing You (Magic Helicopter Press, 2019). He lives in Indiana.