A Book of Bird Poems

The wonder of birds has charmed and inspired poets down the centuries and across the globe. From Shakespeare’s ’feathr’d king’ to Ted Hughes ’butterfly lightness’, of swifts, this is a collection to stir the soul of any nature lover. Our emotional and cultural connection to the bird world is captured in 60 of the best-loved poems, which include the work of Percy Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Longfellow and Keats. All of them accompanied by the beautiful bird illustrations of Ryuto Miyake. From the common robin to the soaring eagle, from the chattering parrot to the sinister crow.

This anthology will help us see our flighted cousins in a new light and confirm why they feature so much in our art, folklore and literature. They are indeed, poetry in motion.

Ana Sampson is the author of many bestselling anthologies including I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud and Other Poems You Half-Remember from School and Green and Pleasant Land: Best-Loved Poems of the British Countryside, and the previous books in this series: Book of Dog Poems and Book of Tree Poems. Ana studied English Literature at the University of Sheffield, achieving both a BA and an MA. She works in publishing PR and has appeared multiple times on radio and television discussing books and poetry. Ana lives in Surrey with her husband, two daughters and two demanding cats.