Icarus, Falling of Birds

In September of 2013, thousands of migratory songbirds perished after being lured like moths to a flame to a hundred-foot-high flare at the Canaport Liquefied Natural Gas plant in Saint John, New Brunswick. Photographer Thaddeus Holownia and poet Harry Thurston sought to memorialize this fateful event, but with Canaport LNG on trial, the fallen birds were collected and held as evidence at the New Brunswick Museum. After two long years, Holownia and Thurston finally gained access.

Icarus, Falling of Birds pairs Holownia’s photography with the poetry of Thurston. In these pages, the burned and damaged bodies of the birds are perpetually falling, while Thurston recounts their great migration: how “they wing like embroidery / through the drapery of fog that clings / to this coast” and of “a false star / burning bright,” that claims them.