Jennifer Archer: “A Poet Is A Nightingale…” plus a giveaway!

Perhaps because they fly, since the earliest of times birds have appeared in literature, folklore, myth and religion as representations of a supernatural link between people and the afterlife. A deceased person’s soul ascending to heaven is symbolized by a dove in Christianity, and birds are often depicted as redeemed souls in Christian art. Similar representations appear in the Christian Bible, as well. Ecclesiastes, Chapter 10, Verse 20 reads, “. . . a little bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.” Christianity isn’t the only religion linking birds and the afterlife. In the Islamic religion, souls manifest as birds until Judgment Day. Frequently, too, Asian and Middle Eastern philosophies speak of birds as a symbol of everlasting life. And according to The Myths Encyclopedia, “ancient Egyptians believed that the soul, the ba, could leave the dead body in the form of a bird, often a hawk.” And, “The feather cloaks that Central American and Mexican priests and kings wore may have been connected to the idea of a soul journey.” 

The idea to have Henry, the ghost in THROUGH HER EYES, visit Tansy in the form of a bird came to me after reading a quote by one of my favorite poets, Percy Bysshe Shelley, whose wife, Mary Shelley, wrote the classic novel Frankenstein. In “A Defense of Poetry,” Shelley writes: “A poet is a nightingale who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds; his auditors are as men entranced by the melody of an unseen musician, who feel that they are moved and softened, yet know not whence or why.”

Discovering this quote seemed like serendipity to me! It described Henry perfectly. Henry is a poet and a musician. Tansy is “entranced” by him. I was intrigued. After I did some research and discovered all the many ties between birds and the afterlife, I knew I wanted to include such a connection in my own story. But what kind of bird should Henry be? I wasn’t sure, so I did more research and learned that in mythology, nightingales often typify love and longing. I knew then that I’d found my bird! In my mind, the fact that nightingales don’t exist in the United States made the presence of one in Cedar Canyon, Texas even more eerie and haunting.