EasterBlack-owned or founded brands at TargetGroceryClothing, Shoes & AccessoriesBabyHomeFurnitureKitchen & DiningOutdoor Living & GardenToysElectronicsVideo GamesMovies, Music & BooksSports & OutdoorsBeautyPersonal CareHealthPetsHousehold EssentialsArts, Crafts & SewingSchool & Office SuppliesParty SuppliesLuggageGift IdeasGift CardsClearanceTarget New ArrivalsTarget Finds#TargetStyleTop DealsTarget Circle DealsWeekly AdShop Order PickupShop Same Day DeliveryRegistryRedCardTarget CircleFind Stores

Tree Fall with Birdsong - by Kendall Dunkelberg (Paperback)

Tree Fall with Birdsong - by  Kendall Dunkelberg (Paperback) - 1 of 1
$19.00 when purchased online
Target Online store #3991

About this item

Highlights

  • Tree Fall with Birdsong explores the natural world around the poet's home in Mississippi and delves into memories of the rural landscapes of Iowa where he was raised, Flanders, and other places he has traveled.
  • Author(s): Kendall Dunkelberg
  • 106 Pages
  • Poetry, Subjects & Themes

Description



About the Book



Treefall with Bird Song explores the natural world around the poet's home in Mississippi and delves into memories of the rural landscapes of Iowa where he was raised, Flanders, and other places he has traveled.



Book Synopsis



Tree Fall with Birdsong explores the natural world around the poet's home in Mississippi and delves into memories of the rural landscapes of Iowa where he was raised, Flanders, and other places he has traveled. These poems look to the natural life cycle as a corollary of loss and renewal, both in response to illness and death of family and friends and to the collective sense of grief in the wake of the recent pandemic. Often overlooked details of daily life and nature lead to deep insight. Mortality, seen in "Tree Fall" with the loss of steadfast and familiar trees, is complemented by the creative force of "Birdsong." The poems range in form and length from narrative free verse to a sequence of haiku, a pantoum, a ghazal, and a creation story. They include ekphrastic poems, retell myths of the underworld, and connect to the lore of wildflowers, snakes, birds, and trees.



Review Quotes




Just as Kendall Dunkelberg's poem, "Orpheus," concludes its illumination of Eurydice being left behind in the underworld with "her face nearly restored to its former/ beauty, . . . to haunt [her husband's] final days," the rest of the collection, Tree Fall with Birdsong, also does much to restore poetry's former beauty through hauntingly personal yet welcoming lyrics, painstakingly crafted in delightful, accessible language.

Claude Wilkinson, author of World Without End

The keenly attentive poems of Kendall Dunkelberg's Tree Fall with Birdsong reveal his long immersion in the losses and continuities of the natural world and the ways in which the other-than-human can instruct us in the pleasure and pain of being human. The magical apple tree of his childhood, with its five-grafted types of fruit, eventually grows old, and at the home of his ninety-year-old mother, the enormous maple rots and will fall. A cluster of poems near the end of the book, written during the pandemic, speaks of the both/and of earthly experience. In "Gilgamesh," "Grief is a cold dark country, / whose citizens are clad in feathers..." But "Gilgamesh" is followed by "Inanna"-or "Ishtar, Persephone, Astarte," who brings springtime, the "soft song of her familiar doves...her bees as they collect sweet nectar." For, as Dunkelberg writes,

... a harvest is never an end, but a new

stage in the cycle, the way the wild goose

as she migrates, is always flying home,

and the road, though it never leaves,

always travels on, even as the river

flows ever constant to the sea. ("Tessellations")

Ann Fisher-Wirth, coeditor of Attached to the Living World: A New Ecopoetry Anthology and author of Paradise Is Jagged

Tree Fall with Birdsong is a sharp-eyed meditation on the natural world and the nature of being human. Kendall Dunkelberg's beautifully crafted songs see beyond what we think we know, transforming vultures into brethren, the possessions of the dead into a smoldering treatise on grief, and cherry-picking into a familial ritual which speaks to the relentless, complicated, cyclic pleasures of life that will end, if we are lucky, in pie. These poems, full of dry humor and surprise, take on subjects as varied as love, death, cancer, lies, Gilgamesh, and even a woman tweeting in the forest-all anchored by the power and persistence of nature. With extraordinary insight, Dunkelberg considers again and again an essential question: "What is mortality in the face of this life"?

Jacqueline Allen Trimble, author of How to Survive the Apocalypse


Dimensions (Overall): 8.5 Inches (H) x 5.5 Inches (W) x .27 Inches (D)
Weight: .26 Pounds
Suggested Age: 22 Years and Up
Number of Pages: 106
Genre: Poetry
Sub-Genre: Subjects & Themes
Publisher: Fernwood Press
Theme: Family
Format: Paperback
Author: Kendall Dunkelberg
Language: English
Street Date: May 21, 2025
TCIN: 1004664364
UPC: 9781594981609
Item Number (DPCI): 247-01-8826
Origin: Made in the USA or Imported
If the item details above aren’t accurate or complete, we want to know about it.

Shipping details

Estimated ship dimensions: 0.27 inches length x 5.5 inches width x 8.5 inches height
Estimated ship weight: 0.26 pounds
We regret that this item cannot be shipped to PO Boxes.
This item cannot be shipped to the following locations: American Samoa (see also separate entry under AS), Guam (see also separate entry under GU), Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico (see also separate entry under PR), United States Minor Outlying Islands, Virgin Islands, U.S., APO/FPO

Return details

This item can be returned to any Target store or Target.com.
This item must be returned within 90 days of the date it was purchased in store, shipped, delivered by a Shipt shopper, or made ready for pickup.
See the return policy for complete information.

Trending Poetry

Let Them Theory - by Mel Robbins (Hardcover)

$15.68
Buy 2 Get 1 Free Books, Movies, Music and Funko
4.8 out of 5 stars with 123 ratings

The Tenant - by Freida McFadden

$13.48 - $23.49
MSRP $17.99 - $32.99 Lower price on select items
Buy 2 Get 1 Free Books, Movies, Music and Funko
4.7 out of 5 stars with 30 ratings

Iron Flame - (Empyrean) - by Rebecca Yarros

$16.48 - $17.48
Buy 2 Get 1 Free Books, Movies, Music and Funko
4.7 out of 5 stars with 489 ratings

Discover more options

Milk and Honey - by  Rupi Kaur (Hardcover)

$18.16
MSRP $24.99
Buy 2 Get 1 Free Books, Movies, Music and Funko
4.9 out of 5 stars with 15 ratings

Guinness World Records 2025 - (Hardcover)

$16.73
MSRP $29.95
Buy 2 Get 1 Free Books, Movies, Music and Funko
3.8 out of 5 stars with 6 ratings

Home Body - by Rupi Kaur (Paperback)

$9.06
MSRP $16.99
Buy 2 Get 1 Free Books, Movies, Music and Funko
4.8 out of 5 stars with 197 ratings

Sun and Her Flowers (Paperback) (Rupi Kaur)

$10.09
Buy 2 Get 1 Free Books, Movies, Music and Funko
4.7 out of 5 stars with 181 ratings

Related Categories

Get top deals, latest trends, and more.

Privacy policy

Footer

About Us

About TargetCareersNews & BlogTarget BrandsBullseye ShopSustainability & GovernancePress CenterAdvertise with UsInvestorsAffiliates & PartnersSuppliersTargetPlus

Help

Target HelpReturnsTrack OrdersRecallsContact UsFeedbackAccessibilitySecurity & FraudTeam Member Services

Stores

Find a StoreClinicPharmacyTarget OpticalMore In-Store Services

Services

Target Circle™Target Circle™ CardTarget Circle 360™Target AppRegistrySame Day DeliveryOrder PickupDrive UpFree 2-Day ShippingShipping & DeliveryMore Services
PinterestFacebookInstagramXYoutubeTiktokTermsCA Supply ChainPrivacyCA Privacy RightsYour Privacy ChoicesInterest Based AdsHealth Privacy Policy