Where Yet the Sweet Birds Sing

Where Yet the Sweet Birds Sing is a chronicle in the tradition of the nature essay and the spiritual journey. Over the course of a year, Richard Quinney kept a journal and took photographs of the passing seasons on his family farm in Walworth County, Wisconsin. Quinney, recently retired from a lifetime of university teaching, was being treated for chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and by year’s end was moving from one place to another. The family farm provided peace and solace, a reminder of times past, and a revelation of the wonders of the present.

Over the course of a year, Richard Quinney kept a journal and took photographs of the passing seasons on his family farm in Walworth County, Wisconsin. While Quinney was being treated for chronic lymphocytic leukemia, the farm provided peace and solace, a reminder of times past, and a revelation of the wonders of the present.
 

Publishers Weekly

Quinney continues his search for meaning in an ordinary life, which he chronicled in Once Again the Wonder (reviewed above), but here his meditations are given urgency by the serious progression of his chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Realizing that "life is more precious than we can ever imagine," he writes a moving journal of his odyssey through an uncertain year (2001), chronicling month by month the simple things he experiences as he waits for results of lab tests and CT scans-getting up at 4 a.m. to observe a meteor shower, strolling through a mall, planting oak seedlings and elderberry bushes-and keeping up an interior monologue about the books he reads and the music he hears. He spends much time at the old family homestead in Wisconsin contemplating relics of the past; observing weasels, foxes and thrushes; and seeking to record the "essence of the place" in his photographs, looking at the farm with new eyes. In December, he notes that at the end of this voyage of discovery he has found what has been there all along: the realization that the farm continues to be the center of his life. As for his illness, he says only that his journey will continue into another year. (Apr.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Richard Quinney is the author of several books that combine autobiographical writing and photography, including Journey to a Far Place, For the Time Being, Borderland, and Once Again the Wonder. He is also the author of academic works in sociology. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin, and on his farm in Walworth County in southern Wisconsin.