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Birds in the Hand: Fiction and Poetry About Birds
From the myths of ancient Greece to the fables of Aesop, from Chaucer to contemporary poetry and fiction, birds are central to literature because they connect us intimately to the natural world. Whether we watch birds at our feeders, travel vast distances to identify rare species, or simply pause in a busy day to listen to the coo of a dove or the trill of a warbler, birds sustain us.
Birds in the Hand is a collection of contemporary fiction and poetry that explores the complex, often startling ways in which birds shed light upon our lives. In work from a diverse and celebrated group of contemporary authors such as Charles Baxter, T.C. Boyle, Jim Harrison, Flannery O'Connor, Pattiann Rogers, Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott, Ethan Canin, and Jorie Graham, birds are sources of inspiration, confrontation, and revelation.
These stories and poems take us from New York and Hoboken to the Salton Sea and the wilds of Montana, from a hardware store to the westernmost Aleutian island, from a prison to marshes, forests, and seacoasts.
Field guides and natural history books cannot capture the essence of why birds thrill us. Birds in the Hand uses the vitality and nuance of fiction and poetry to get at the heart of our mysterious sense of birds and the way they can reflect the brightest and darkest aspects of our own natures.
Birds in the Hand is a collection of contemporary fiction and poetry that explores the complex, often startling ways in which birds shed light upon our lives. In work from a diverse and celebrated group of contemporary authors such as Charles Baxter, T.C. Boyle, Jim Harrison, Flannery O'Connor, Pattiann Rogers, Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott, Ethan Canin, and Jorie Graham, birds are sources of inspiration, confrontation, and revelation.
These stories and poems take us from New York and Hoboken to the Salton Sea and the wilds of Montana, from a hardware store to the westernmost Aleutian island, from a prison to marshes, forests, and seacoasts.
Field guides and natural history books cannot capture the essence of why birds thrill us. Birds in the Hand uses the vitality and nuance of fiction and poetry to get at the heart of our mysterious sense of birds and the way they can reflect the brightest and darkest aspects of our own natures.
392 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 17, 2024
2013
I was at my reading room, this book in hand,
when the voice on the page spoke
of a dead bird in the hand,
still warm to the touch after hitting a glass window.
Mere seconds later, a juvenile, speckled, red-eyed starling
strays from his murmuration and slams onto the glass door.
And so there I was,
holding the still quivering, dying bird
on the palm of my hand.
April 2024
I reread this on a whim, as I felt, while scanning the pages, there may be some stories and poems I missed, or forgotten. How absolutely right I was. Most of the stories felt like a first reading. While only a handful really appealed to me, these are enough to rate the book the same four stars. That, and the most uncanny encounter with another bird, midway through my rereading. I was in Talay, where Eurasian tree sparrows were nesting at Mama's lanai--they were everywhere: behind the horse painting, on the ceiling's corner speakers; they're somewhat irresponsible, impulsive nest builders, these sparrows. A few evenings ago, I saw Luna with something in her jowls, which she grudgingly dropped in front of me. It was another fallen nestling, a smattering of feathers and not much else. It was alive and unscathed, and nary a chance of surviving. Yet another bird sleeping, dying on the palm of my hand.
There's something mystical about this book...
I was at my reading room, this book in hand,
when the voice on the page spoke
of a dead bird in the hand,
still warm to the touch after hitting a glass window.
Mere seconds later, a juvenile, speckled, red-eyed starling
strays from his murmuration and slams onto the glass door.
And so there I was,
holding the still quivering, dying bird
on the palm of my hand.
April 2024
I reread this on a whim, as I felt, while scanning the pages, there may be some stories and poems I missed, or forgotten. How absolutely right I was. Most of the stories felt like a first reading. While only a handful really appealed to me, these are enough to rate the book the same four stars. That, and the most uncanny encounter with another bird, midway through my rereading. I was in Talay, where Eurasian tree sparrows were nesting at Mama's lanai--they were everywhere: behind the horse painting, on the ceiling's corner speakers; they're somewhat irresponsible, impulsive nest builders, these sparrows. A few evenings ago, I saw Luna with something in her jowls, which she grudgingly dropped in front of me. It was another fallen nestling, a smattering of feathers and not much else. It was alive and unscathed, and nary a chance of surviving. Yet another bird sleeping, dying on the palm of my hand.
There's something mystical about this book...
July 19, 2015
I bought this at a used bookstore for $1.50, figuring I wouldn't lose much if it turned out to be a bust. But I loved it! The editors have collected works from topnotch contemporary writers. And the fact that all the entries center in some way on birds never becomes repetitive. Birds are here in all their light and darkness, and our humanness is revealed with every poem and story. I highly recommend this book, even if you aren't as much of a bird-lover as I am. Birds are at the heart of everything in this collection, and it's not just about birds.
February 7, 2012
This made for a great bathroom book - an essential caveat of fine literature. Short poems, long poems, short stories, excerpts... all varying widely in subject, tone, voice, etc... but tied together by the common thread of birds. If you use the bathroom (and I suspect that you do) I would definitely recommend this book to help you pass the time (and other things).
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews