“Cackling Mister Willet” from The Outrider Ledger by Rob Sienna, copyright: 2026. Genre: Spoken Word.
Here the author reads his poem #140 from The Outrider Ledger, “Cackling Mister Willet.”
Summary: This poem is a whimsical forensic study of a ‘black and white striped trickster’ —the Willet— viewed not as biological data, but as a philosopher of the mires. By channeling the bird’s ‘trumpeting vision,’ we bridge the gap between scientific observation and those ‘storybooks untold’ that live within the mudflats. It is a musical investigation that validates mirth as a tool of the transcendental witness, capturing a creature who spends his days ‘spouting out what life’s about’ while cackling through the crooked wonders of the river-garp.
While Richard Dyer-Bennet and Tuli Kupferberg were important literary and performance mentors for this author; this particular piece has a lineage with roots in – Littoral Zone Field Notes / The Trickster Series / The Outrider Ledger (Series V), and includes influences from H.D. Thoreau, Dr. Seuss, Jane Goodall, and Sid Krofft.
This poem is one of a series of 400 original pieces from Rob Sienna’s digital archive, The Outrider Ledger. A plethora of works in the Outrider Archive are being recorded by the author.