About the Book.
In Secret Sounds of Ponds, environmental musician and ecopoet David Rothenberg tosses a microphone into a pond and we read (and hear) about an entirely new realm: the unexpected and stirring rhythms of some of the smallest and loudest creatures on Earth. Recording the songs of the animals and plants inhabiting each pond reveals a different perspective than what we meet in our human society. Rothenberg makes this music real though his engaging prose and conversations with environmentalists ranging from Werner Herzog to Peter Gabriel to ecologists specializing in these unique waterscapes. Each pond episode brings the reader closer to a new understanding of the non-human world that we share.
About the Author.
Musician and philosopher David Rothenberg wrote Why Birds Sing, Bug Music, Survival of the Beautiful, Nightingales in Berlin and many other books, published in at least eleven languages. His two previous books of poetry are Blue Cliff Record: Zen Echoes and Invisible Mountains. His latest book is Whale Music. He has more than forty recordings out, including One Dark Night I Left My Silent House with Marilyn Crispell on ECM, and most recently In the Wake of Memories and Faultlines. He has performed or recorded with Pauline Oliveros, Peter Gabriel, Ray Phiri, Suzanne Vega, Scanner, Elliottv Sharp, Iva Bittova, and the Karnataka College of Percussion. Rothenberg is a Distinguished Professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
About the Event Partner.
Edwin Torres is a poet, performer, sound visualist, graphic designer, and editor. He has brought his bodylingo poetics across many disciplines and has had 13 books of poetry published, including Quanundrum: i will be your many angled thing (which received a 2022 American Book Award), The Animal’s Perception of Earth, and Xoeteox: the infinite word object. He grew up in New York City and currently lives in Beacon, NY.
With Secret Special Guest...
Ilgın Deniz Akseloğlu works with language in the entwinement of art and philosophy, with the aim of decoding the cultural to arrive at the natural. Since 2013, she has worked as a curator, art-space director, writer, image editor, art book publisher and advisor. Akseloğlu has been writer and editor book projects, including: A Sound Word Almanac, edited by Bernd Herzogenrath, The Gatekeeper by Lene Marie Fossen, How We See by 10x10 Photobooks, La Puente by Charlotte Schmitz, FotoEvidence, and MONO.