POETRY

Whip-Poor-Will, I

By L. Lamar Wilson     Reprinted with permission from University of Georgia Press
Vertical Divider
Play dead, like you, all day, then rise at night
& sing—my throat Gabriel's genuflected cry. O
Let the souls slain at night rise first, reclaim
This desolate terrain. O let this land's redeemed
Say No more & drive these maniacal white ghosts
More mad. So many black & luminous smiles,
Our seek a found invisibility. Like you, I work
Now while it is night, when no white man can
Without my never-ready back. Unfurl
My ancient tongues & fill the holes in their
Sacked hearts with this terrifying refrain:
This world's all mine. All mine. All mine. All
Mine. All mine. All mine. You've lied to your
Selves. You've occupied my home too long. Get out.

EASTERN WHIP-POOR-WILL

Caprimulgus vociferus

Habitat and Range: Ground and low horizontal branches in mixed pine-deciduous and deciduous woods. Eastern United States, as far west as Nebraska and Kansas, north to Canada, and south to Florida. Migrates from Florida and the tropics in spring and arrives in the Southern Appalachians in late March and early April.

Description and Notes: The whip-poor-will is also known as a “night jar”; a group of whip-poor-wills may be known as “a seek” or “an invisibility.” The mottled gray and brown plumage of this chesty little bright-eyed and short-billed bird gives it exceptional camouflage in the leaf litter of its woodland habitat, where it nests on the ground and sleeps during the day. At dusk and on moonlit nights, it declares its presence (and its name) with its sharp, insistent call: “whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will.” Whip-poor-wills sing more with moonlight. (A 1981 study in Georgia correlates decelerating and accelerating call frequency with the diminishing and then increasing light of a lunar eclipse.) What's more, whip-poor-wills sync their egg-laying with the lunar cycle. By timing the eggs to hatch a week and a half or so before the full moon, the parents have the best light in which to forage moths, beetles, and other insects for their new young. Because of its nocturnal habits and haunting call, the whip-poor-will in folk and native lore is a harbinger of human loneliness and death. As populations are now declining steeply, however, the bird's association with omen or lament reads differently. If nothing else, its presence will continue in literature and music; whip-poor-wills appear in stories by Washington Irving, William Faulkner, and James Thurber, poems by Stephen Vincent Benét and Robert Frost, and songs by Hank Williams and Elton John.


A Literary Field Guide to
​Southern Appalachia

University of Georgia Press