Birds: An Anthology

by Jaqueline Mitchell (Editor), Eric Fitch Daglish (Illustrations)

Thomas Hardy notes the thrush’s ‘full-hearted evensong of joy illimited’, Gilbert White observes how swallows sweep through the air but swifts ‘dash round in circles’ and Rachel Carson watches sanderlings at the ocean’s edge, scurrying ‘across the beach like little ghosts’. From early times, we have been entranced by the bird life around us. This anthology brings together poetry and prose in celebration of birds, records their behaviour, flight, song and migration, the changes across the seasons and in different habitats – in woodland and pasture, on river, shoreline and at sea – and our own interaction with them. From India to America, from China to Rwanda, writers marvel at birds – the building of a long-tailed tit’s nest, the soaring eagle, the extraordinary feats of migration and the pleasures to be found in our own gardens. Including extracts by Geoffrey Chaucer, Dorothy Wordsworth, Richard Jefferies, Charles Darwin, James Joyce, John Keats, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Dickinson, Anton Chekhov, Kathleen Jamie, Jonathan Franzen and Barbara Kingsolver among many others, this rich anthology will be welcomed by bird-lovers, country ramblers and anyone who has taken comfort or joy in a bird in flight.

Genres: Poetry

272 pages, Hardcover

Published May 22, 2020

Reviews

[Cathy]

A Christmas present, with a beautiful cover, and a variety of texts to read within. A good 'dip in and out, no need to progress in a straight line' holiday read.

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

A beautiful anthology with woodcuts by Eric Fitch Daglish, and for a long Corona winter this was my bedside compagnon, good for one or two pages before falling asleep. I was not so enthousiastic about the poems (my fault), but some of the narratives are very touching and poetic, and always made me relaxed, and it was a great thing to be able to close my eyes with them in my mind instead of the grey sludge of these Corona-misted times. Some particularly touched me: in 1889 the Pall Mall Gazette wrote about the hundreds of people that come to listen to a nightingale that has established itself in local allotment gardens, in so much even that the police is called in to control the crowds. It was touching but also strange to read this in times where Corona has thrown us back to nature and people come out again, and nice to hear from a pre-radio and -television time, where a singing nightingale was a crowd pleaser of repute.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

I admire and appreciate the dedicated and meticulous collection of prose, poetry, personal essays, and research observations in this work. From Ovid to Jonathan Franzen, from the ancient Greeks to contemporary writers, this anthology of works about birds provides an escape from the mundane ruminations of humanity to the mysterious and extraordinary interactions between human and bird.

[Kris (My Novelesque Life) · Rating 3 out of 5]

RATING: 3 STARS

This is not an anthology that you can read continuously, as it gets pretty tedious quick. I thought this was a collection of poems, but it is a mix of poetry, prose, excerpts from nonfiction. That isn't a bad thing, but a lot of it was excerpts and you get a quick snapshot. I skimmed a lot of the book, and some I just wrote down author names to read the actual document later.

[Rebekah Runey · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite book to pick up on sabbaths— the poetry and woodcuts are absolutely beautiful.

Also, the perfect gift for your favorite bird nerd (thanks Ryan 💛)