Birds of America: Poems

An evocative, uplifting, and thoughtfully illustrated collection of poems steeped in the natural world, examining life and healing in the aftermath of trauma

“An achievement . . . This book reminds us what poetry is capable of.”—José Olivarez, author of Promises of Gold

See how the eagles lift now, bound by surviving together.
We only get one shot at this. Save
what you can. Love even what you can’t save.

What does it mean to love someone, and to love the world, when what we love is vanishing? In Birds of America, award-winning poet Chera Hammons reckons with the intersection of personal violence and the violence humans have wrought upon our planet and explores the beauty that remains among the ruins. With graceful lyricism, she translates seemingly mundane scenes from the natural world—two eagles locked together in a tandem dive, the fresh sweetness of wild onions—into exquisite revelations of human feeling, inviting us to glimpse the hidden magic of the everyday.

For anyone who struggles to remain grounded when it feels like the world is falling apart, each poem in Birds of America offers a meditative lens with which to view the fraught relationships we have with the living beings around us, which come to life through exquisite artwork by acclaimed illustrator Sophie Lucido Johnson. Hammons encourages us to love fiercely, to embrace a future where our damage teaches us to be kinder people, and to never give up on the beauty of our world.