From Chatwin Books
On a Benediction of Wind
Poems and Photographs from the Natural World
WINNER 2022 MONTANA BOOK AWARD
Finalist, High Plains Book Award
Ten years in the making, in this sparse yet lyrical work, poet Charles Finn and photographer Barbara Michelman, weave a tapestry of words and images from the natural world into a single, timeless strand. With its emphasis on birds, the innate holiness of nature, and experiences shared by an unnamed couple, a quiet intimacy and strength run through this collection of free verse and prose poems, each paired with a black-and-white landscape photograph from the Pacific Northwest and the American Southwest. Born from a deep friendship and fidelity to all living things, On a Benediction of Wind it is an invitation to leave the distractions of the modern world behind and listen once again to "the confessions of snow" and "the breathing of stones".
Wild Delicate Seconds
29 Wildlife Encounters
OSU Press 2012
In twenty-nine micro-essays that border on prose poems, Charles Finn captures chance encounters with the everyday—and not so everyday—animals, birds, and insects of North America.
There are no maulings or fantastic escapes in Finn’s narratives—only stillness and attentiveness to beauty. With profundity, humor, grace, and compassion, Finn pays homage to the creatures that share our world—from black bears to bumble bees, mountain lions to muskrats—and, in doing so, touches on what it means to be human.
Wild Delicate Seconds will appeal to both trained and casual wildlife observers; to birders, hikers, conservationists, ecologists, and naturalists; and to readers of American nature writers such as Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Barry Lopez, Annie Dillard, and Mary Oliver.
Wild Delicate Seconds is an exquisite read, full of small surprises with big heartbeats. Finn's stories are warbler-sized. They cut through the air of the mind like flames.
—Gretel Ehrlich, Author of The Solace of Open Space and The Future of Ice
I don't know when I have felt more captive to a suite of animal associations than I do in reading Wild Delicate Seconds. I think of Ernest Thompson Seton, both Adolf and Olaus Murie, and all of the Craigheads, written with the elegant concision of Penelope Fitzgerald and the wild whimsy of Tom Robbins. But this is Charles Finn, all by himself, except for the company of 29 memorable creatures--all the more memorable for his gem-like accounts of intimate meetings in the wild. Finn's mastery of simile, his deep, deep attention to others around him, and his humility in the presence of his evolutionary peers make this a fine book, one I shall read over and over, give away again and again, and return to when I am lonely.
—Robert Michael Pyle, Author of Mariposa Road and The Thunder Tree
These brief meditations are as beautiful for what they donʼt say as for what they do. Charles Finn does not pad, overreach, or over-emote. His precision accounts of wildlife encounters summon awe, wonder, and magnificence when those feelings are authentically present, but just as readily summon comedy if the encounter was, as Edward Hoagland once put it, “like meeting a fantastically dressed mute on the road.” These are not fleeting glances: they are full-on full-bodied face-to-face invocations of the way animals and birds “speak out by saying precisely nothing,” uncannily propelling us into “the exact place where the world begins.”
— David James Duncan, Author of The Brothers K and My Story as Told by Water
When I know the name of a creature, Thoreau said, I find it difficult to see. Charles Finn has escaped that disability, and done magic: to summon the moment of encounter with a wild creature without killing that drama with too much mind. The feral moments in this book are deft, alive with exact detail, full, and short. This is a field guide to a different kind of outside, where the wise, wide-eyed child of the self meets ouzel, turtle, fox, and owl. We need more big short books like this one—after reading Finn, you will wander alert, humbled, wise.
— Kim Stafford, Oregon Poet Laureate
In the space of these twenty-nine encounters, Charles Finn invites his readers into a landscape of “uncountable geometries, great silences,” a primordial terrain in which “hunger is the beginning of everything.” Here, a crane’s flight is “the old machinery of the world lifting into the sky.” Here, we experience moments so stunning “there is no restarting the heart.”
Finn gives us the quality of intense seeing that transcends into insight, seeing that transforms into vision. In the encounter with ravens, he reminds us of what poets tell us: “Everything… shouts one thing, and one thing only, ‘Pay attention!’” And Charles Finn does. Indeed, he does. His words pay a rapt and rapturous attention.
— Paulann Petersen, Former Oregon Poet Laureate
Charles Finn’s Wild Delicate Seconds is like a series of nature photographs taken not by someone who shoots pictures, but someone who takes the time to study the light and the surroundings and bring out the most unlikely aspects of each of his subjects. Finn writes like a poet and views the world around him like a painter.
— Russell Rowland, Author of In Open Spaces
Wild Delicate Seconds is invaluable. Straightforwardly and precisely articulated, it reinforces our sense that we live next door to mysteries while inhabiting profound complexities, and that we should spend time thanking our lucky stars — and Charles Finn
— William Kittredge, Author of Hole in the Sky
If there were a god and we were its eyes we might see with the simplicity, clarity, and grace that Charles Finn puts into words in Wild Delicate Seconds. His meditations on the birds and beasts who inhabit our world as well as his are pungent as wild strawberries, musky as morels, and a treat to be digested in small, memorable bites.
—Annick Smith, Author of Homestead and In This We Are Native
Wild Delicate Seconds examines those jeweled instants offering an invitation, brief portals into a more comprehensive, complete, and compassionate universe, instants too often dismissed with a glance. Charles Finn’s micro-essays distill keen observation and deep contemplation, articulating an interaction with the world at once inclusive, generous, and instructive.
—Robert Stubblefield
Praise for Wild Delicate Seconds
