An Alphabet of Birds by Toti O'Brien - Zoom Reading, Saturday, December 5, 2020 at 3 pm

AN ALPHABET OF BIRDS

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Topic: Moonrise Press Presents Toti O'Brien's An Alphabet of Birds

Time: Dec 5, 2020 03:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Recording on YouTube: https://youtu.be/RYti3hBLs1Q

This presentation is partly sponsored by the Dignity Health Foundation, through a grant for "Close to Nature" Project for Phoenix Houses of Los Angeles, with the California State Poetry as one of the collaborating partners. 

Link to the recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYti3hBLs1Q

ABOUT THIS BOOK

http://www.moonrisepress.com/alphabet-of-birds.html

Buy it now: ISBN 978-1-945938-41-2, paperback, 184 pages, $15.00

Buy it now: ISBN 978-1-945938-42-9, ebook in ePub format, $10.00

Maja Trochimczyk with Toti's book

Not quite hard to decipher… on the contrary, friendly and familiar sounding, An Alphabet of Birds is a prose collection inspired by “daily nature,” by those kerchiefs of landscape gracing us through a kitchen door, a car window, in the middle of our urban, busy life. They are glimpses and fragments, fugitive and yet poignant, loaded with surprise, magic, lessons to learn or else mysteries for the heart to treasure in secret, in awe. 

~ Toti O’Brien, author

Toti O'Brien during her reading, Dec 5, 2020

An Alphabet of Birds encompasses an entire bestiary, from its namesake birds to the squirrel that owns the narrator’s backyard to the bears that own the salmon streams. The ground of these short prose pieces is everyday life, the “daily display of splendor.” Toti O’Brien invokes a world where what is wry and wise meets what is whimsical and surreal. Questions tumble, pile on top of one another, full of possibilities and speculation. O’Brien’s language has a rolling rhythm that unspools like an incantation. Fall under her spell and journey with her into the  mysteries of the quotidian.

~ Cynthia Anderson, author of Now Voyager and Route

This prose collection of 34 short stories describes the vagaries of birds, animals, plants, seen and described by a keen and talented observer. The author has patience, a gift of attentive focus on their behaviors and transformation, and a talent to write down the reflections on the meaning of these behaviors and transformation in the constant flow of daily life. Toti O'Brien author is a multi-talented poet, writer, artist, musician, and a friend of all living beings, the whole Earth.

~ Maja Trochimczyk, Ph.D., Moonrise Press 

TOTI O’BRIEN is the Italian Accordionist with the Irish last name. She was born in Rome, Italy, raised in Sicily and France. After touring Europe and Brazil with her itinerant theater, in the early nineties, she established herself in Los Angeles where she makes a living as a self-employed artist, performing musician and professional dancer. O’Brien’s first book of stories, Africa, was published in 1990. It was followed by another short story collection, Reversed Memories, two illustrated children books and an essay collection, Lanterna Magica, gathering selected work out of her long-term collaboration with Italian journals and magazines. O’Brien started writing in the English language in 2004. Since then, her poetry, fiction and non-fiction were published in hundreds of journals and anthologies in the US, UK, Ireland, Canada, India, Australia, and all over the world. 

Her most recent appearances include The Moth, The Hamilton Stone, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and World Literature Today. Her poetry collection Other Maidens (BlazeVOX, 2020) and a prose collection, Pages of a Broken Diary (Pskj’s Porch, 2021), are about to be released. Her work was nominated for Best of the Net, Best Small Fiction, Best American Essay, the Pushcart, and various other prizes. Her memoir ‘Nicotine’ won a nonfiction prose award in 2018. 

Her essay ‘Blur In The Front Line’ won the Anthony Award in 2016. Besides her creative writing, she contributes articles and reviews about art, music, film, literature and civilization to several magazines. She also translates poetry and prose from the Italian, the Spanish, and the French. O’Brien’s multimedia artwork was exhibited in group and solo shows in Europe and the US, since the early nineties. Her paintings, sculptures, collages and textiles were featured in many publications, and she has produced book covers and illustrations.

Table of Contents

In the Moonlight — 3 

The Lawn — 4 

The Staircase — 9 

The Leaf and the Butterfly — 14 

Darwin —17 

Pavo Regina — 21 

Terra Firma — 29 

Speculum — 33 

Milagros — 37 

Sunset Walk — 39 

Doves — 42

Precious — 47 

The Decadence of Grapefruit —49 

Spectrum — 58 

Dog Days — 61 

The Salmon and the Bear — 64 

Beautiful Bones — 69 

Creation — 72 

In the Garden — 81 

Lunacy — 84 

September — 93 

November — 99 

Peacocks — 102 

Engraved — 105 

Five Senses — 109 

At Risk — 127 

The Statue —129 

Augur — 134 

The Flowers — 139 

The Fountain — 141 

Part Out — 158 

An Alphabet of Birds —164

The Volvo and the Bike —168 

Gardener’s Companion — 172 

About the Author — 174