Does the world need any more poems about birds?

Until the end of the year I shall be polishing my next small collection of poetry. This little beauty has been part of my life since late 2022 when I began writing poems inspired be the artwork of my friend and neighbour Maggie Cameron. We took our work to the public in the form of an exhibition (which turned out to be one of the most successful the exhibitors had held) and mused on the idea of a book. From these poems the concept for my latest book emerged. It’s had some success being both longlisted and highly commended in two notable competitions, but there’s something missing. As I’ve been working with the book, I realise there is a question I need to answer…does the world really need any more poems about birds?

Photo by Hassan Pasha on Unsplash

Birds and birdsong

Not black at all - Jane Wilkinson

She lands distracted, on less than a twig, sleek sky fish, whole

as a doorknob, an unreflecting gouache brushfall laid down

by a troubled hand pausing, repausing for the paint to decide,

where to spill some flight into a bare line of difference between

the field of pigment and its other: white air. Could I even start

to try to concoct Tan Leather Boot-toe Rubbed Matt With Black

and then say that, there, that is what her colour was, it comes out

as Rotten January Acorn, a lonely sod unloosened between

the toes of some other tree, maybe hornbeam; we walked

and walked, just to find two acorns still fresh enough to qualify

as whole, to bag up, then cast a senseless desperate spell to poultice

our ache, to make our making, make something whole and now

here she is, Flat Coke feathers, the fleet glass-bead-eye blackbird

counting out her winter from berry to berry; what future nestfuls.

My reading for my current Poetry School course Birds and Birdsong has given me a fabulous forty-three pages of poetry about birds. I have words from poets who deliver exquisite, questioning observation that throws the role of the poet into relief, as in Jane Wilkinson’s Not black at all, words from those who feel intense kinship with the birds they describe, words that embrace themes of flight, capture, escape that rise so naturally from observation. There are poems that will be familiar to many, as well as innovative, creative and challenging work. With such an abundance of brilliant work, what can I hope to add? Does the world need my words about birds? Should I turn my attention elsewhere?

The beauty is that while many poets write about birds, not one of those poets know what birds mean to me, how I interpret them, or how I respond to their call, their flight pattern, their plight in the face of an ever-hostile world. No one can tell of the birds like I can, just like no one can paint a bird like Maggie can or take a photograph of Goldfinches in battle like Andrew Fusek Peters. Others may may come close, they may use the same techniques, or equipment, but the interpretation is unique to the artist and writer.

The daughter of a man who loved birds

Work on this small collection began in earnest after Dad died. In its first incarnation it was an exploration of memory and grief, and whilst it clearly had something it’s also clear that something is missing. My mission for the past month has been to pinpoint what I need to change, and I believe I’ve cracked it. The book needs identity, and to deliver that identity I needed believe in the value of the work.

As I’ve spent time with the book, I’ve begun to really understand it. Some poems have been removed, new poems have been written, old poems have been revisited and revived. I’m learning to feel proud of my work again, excited by it and yes, to believe in it. There is that naggy voice to silence “shouldn’t you have got it right by now?” but if I believe art to reflect what is inside a person, not just a saleable commodity, then there can be no real timeline. I understand that this is an incredibly idealistic view of the process and understand that I am producing what I hope to be a saleable commodity, but that cannot be at the forefront of the creation of anything, be it writing, painting, filmmaking…the list is goes on. Honing and refining my work goes beyond technical skill and into the less measurable realms of meaning and identity and it is in this that true value is found.

What do I hope to achieve

Hope is the thing with feathers (254)

Emily Dickinson

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

We live in a world where new horrors emerge each day. Art, music, poetry, dance are ways to express what it means to be human and to make connection with others. Through connection we can actualise change. Change happens in the individual and if one poem I write connects with someone in a way that gives them a better day, then that is something to be proud of. The presence of birds in my poetry brings the presence of joy in simplicity, the presences of ancient legend and myth, the presence of folklore and shared history. It seems that hope is indeed the thing with feathers.