Alan W. Powers

It is currently in worldwide libraries, and at least one zoo. It grew from 25 years of learning one bird's many vocalizations each summer. First summer, the Robin; second, the Oriole, etc. Powers gave over seventy Birdtalk-talks at bookstores, churches, and on radio--as well as one TV show, in Milan, Italy, RAI Tre. One was at the Dickinson Manse in Amherst, MA, in the garden where he recited several of ED's bird poems from memory--and one Frost poem on the Wood Thrush, "Come In." He ended other talks with "Come In," to which he adds my the pentatonic/bluesy Wood Thrush song, "Far in the pillared dark / Thrush music went / Almost like a call / To come into the dark and lament/ But No, I was out for stars/ I would not come in / I meant, not even if asked/ And I hadn't been."; the poem plays and concludes here with the Pathetic Fallacy."
Highly recommend a new international website,
www.zoomusicology.com Click on the R, "Zoomusicologists," and scroll down past the name Powers to T, Hollis Taylor, an Australian composer and bird expert. Click on Pied Butcherbird MP3. Eight seconds of sheer artistry by a bird from Alice Springs, 2000 kilometers from Taylor's home in Eastern Australia.… (meer)

Though I wrote this book, I am amazed how beautiful the British art publisher made it. An early sample of my writing on Bruno was complimented as "better than academic" by my back-cover author, Archibald MacLeish. I hope it is as he generously said, but it is also very academic, almost too well researched. Light and witty in parts, too, I hope, especially at the start of chapters. (One Chapter, Three, is a learned survey which really should be at the end of the book.)
I have given twenty talks from this book, including at Marquette University (Astronomy and Physics Departments), SUNY-New Paltz (Italian Studies), University of Notre Dame, London (Institute for Historical Research and Global Studies), and Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The latter is on Youtube if you google: Giordano Bruno Harvard Video. (It's 23 minutes, some fun at the start and finish, and especially good from 10-15 minutes according to a London actor-director.)… (meer)

In his The Worlds of Giordano Bruno, Alan W. Powers explores the life, writings, and legacies of Giordano Bruno, a man he calls "the first modern." Powers traces Bruno's frequent travels, analyzes his many and varied writings, and perhaps most importantly, explores the ways Bruno has been seen by others in the centuries since his death. The historiographical treatment is fascinating, and along with the rest of the book is well worth a read. Powers adds an addendum, on early efforts to map the moon.

Powers also shares his own experiences in researching Bruno's life and works, visiting sites Bruno would have known; his enthusiasm for the subject is evident, as is his witty sense of humor. The book is enhanced by well-reproduced images of buildings, illustrations from Bruno's books, the man and his contemporaries (as depicted in portraits or statues), and a detailed map of Bruno's journeys.

A good overview of a truly remarkable character in human history.… (meer)