Don’t expect anything new.
You know my kind:
aberrant honeyeater
bell miner
berrypecker.
We are mock and echo
you say we’ve ripped your song
but that’s another story.
The isle
is full of noises. Listen.*
They have lost nothing from this change
do the can-can, cancan can
The main thing the ACL wanted was to take out
the mimicking parts of the acts says Wendy Francis
Queensland director of the Australian Christian Lobby
wendyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy wendywend
wen wen wen when when when when when
a civil partnerships system mimics marriage
and attempts to set up a marriage-like system
when when when when can can can*
In songbirds, the choice of song is learned
but the need to sing’s instinctive.
Maybe for humans, too.
In mountainous parts of the Canary Islands and Turkey
the hill people whistle to talk
across miles of rock and cliff.
A dialogue of trills and warbles
rings out all day, the air filled with the
uncorded, foldless language
of lip and tongue and breath.*
(the canary is named after the Canary Islands
which are named after
dogs that might have been seals
but no one knows for sure.
Origins aren’t what they used to be)*
Mozart bought a starling in May of 1784.
It sang back to him a scrap of his Piano Concerto No. 17
with a G natural turned sharp. Some scholars say
it wasn’t Mozart who composed it
but the bird.When the starling died, Mozart staged a funeral
and wrote an elegy.
Poems about Mozart’s starling have been written by
Daneen Wardrop, Karl Kirchwey, Robert Cording, and
Ralph Burns.
Something here about mimicry and love and awe.
Something here about creation.*
the mimicking parts
wendywendy can wendy can wendy can do
do the can-can
show us your galop infernal
daneeeeeeeeen daneeeeeeeeen
star
-ling
Love you Queenslaaaaaaand
Where the Bleijie hell are you?
ralphburns ralpburns ralphburns ralphburns
drop war
star
-ling
drop war
star-ling
drop*
When singing back the songs they have heard
starlings tend to sing off-key
and to sing fragments only.*
How do songbirds transmit vocal motifs?
Researchers report that a starling cried mizu, mizu (Japanese for ‘water’)
after it flew to the tap for a drink.
Another screamed
defence
defence
defence
after listening to basketball on TV.*
Common starlings,
we spread the bridal creeper
we probe and sally and lunge and glean
as each new man comes with nets or traps
or talk or gun or broom.We speak in more tongues than you can fathom.
Our variations on your song are not
variations on your song.
What came first, theme or variation?
No, think again:
What came first,
theme or variation?*
It’s not that we want to be chickens or phones
or humans or alarms
just starlings
just us just us
but we like to talk
and talk back to the world
and chickens speak chicken
phones speak phone
and maybe everything seems like mimicry
if you only listen for yourself.
- 115: SPACE
with A Sometimes
114: NO THEME 13
with J Toledo & C Tse
113: INVISIBLE WALLS
with A Walker & D Disney
112: TREAT
with T Dearborn
111: BABY
with S Deo & L Ferney
110: POP!
with Z Frost & B Jessen
109: NO THEME 12
with C Maling & N Rhook
108: DEDICATION
with L Patterson & L Garcia-Dolnik
107: LIMINAL
with B Li
106: OPEN
with C Lowe & J Langdon
105: NO THEME 11
with E Grills & E Stewart
104: KIN
with E Shiosaki
103: AMBLE
with E Gomez and S Gory
102: GAME
with R Green and J Maxwell
101: NO THEME 10
with J Kinsella and J Leanne
100: BROWNFACE
with W S Dunn
99: SINGAPORE
with J Ip and A Pang
97 & 98: PROPAGANDA
with M Breeze and S Groth
96: NO THEME IX
with M Gill and J Thayil
95: EARTH
with M Takolander
94: BAYT
with Z Hashem Beck
93: PEACH
with L Van, G Mouratidis, L Toong
92: NO THEME VIII
with C Gaskin
91: MONSTER
with N Curnow
90: AFRICAN DIASPORA
with S Umar
89: DOMESTIC
with N Harkin
88: TRANSQUEER
with S Barnes and Q Eades
87: DIFFICULT
with O Schwartz & H Isemonger
86: NO THEME VII
with L Gorton
85: PHILIPPINES
with Mookie L and S Lua
84: SUBURBIA
with L Brown and N O'Reilly
83: MATHEMATICS
with F Hile
82: LAND
with J Stuart and J Gibian
81: NEW CARIBBEAN
with V Lucien
80: NO THEME VI
with J Beveridge
57.1: EKPHRASTIC
with C Atherton and P Hetherington
57: CONFESSION
with K Glastonbury
56: EXPLODE
with D Disney
55.1: DALIT / INDIGENOUS
with M Chakraborty and K MacCarter
55: FUTURE MACHINES
with Bella Li
54: NO THEME V
with F Wright and O Sakr
53.0: THE END
with P Brown
52.0: TOIL
with C Jenkins
51.1: UMAMI
with L Davies and Lifted Brow
51.0: TRANSTASMAN
with B Cassidy
50.0: NO THEME IV
with J Tranter
49.1: A BRITISH / IRISH
with M Hall and S Seita
49.0: OBSOLETE
with T Ryan
48.1: CANADA
with K MacCarter and S Rhodes
48.0: CONSTRAINT
with C Wakeling
47.0: COLLABORATION
with L Armand and H Lambert
46.1: MELBOURNE
with M Farrell
46.0: NO THEME III
with F Plunkett
45.0: SILENCE
with J Owen
44.0: GONDWANALAND
with D Motion
43.1: PUMPKIN
with K MacCarter
43.0: MASQUE
with A Vickery
42.0: NO THEME II
with G Ryan
41.1: RATBAGGERY
with D Hose
41.0: TRANSPACIFIC
with J Rowe and M Nardone
40.1: INDONESIA
with K MacCarter
40.0: INTERLOCUTOR
with L Hart
39.1: GIBBERBIRD
with S Gory
39.0: JACKPOT!
with S Wagan Watson
38.0: SYDNEY
with A Lorange
37.1: NEBRASKA
with S Whalen
37.0: NO THEME!
with A Wearne
36.0: ELECTRONICA
with J Jones