The Beauty of Vultures

The interplay between photography, nature and poetic form is on full display in Wendy McGrath’s and Danny Miles’ collaborative new work The Beauty of Vultures. This innovative collection takes readers into the surprisingly chatty world of birds, whose avian artistry and poignant plumage mimics the formally and structurally inventive tones found in each poem. The language wings its way between funny and serious, poignant and morbid, while always drawing parallels between the poet’s thoughts and the camera’s eye. From peahens telling off their elaborately festooned romantic partners, robins’ empty eggs recalling air raid tests after WWII, to seagulls serving as harbingers of humanity’s ongoing crimes against nature, each unit of photography melds seamlessly with its poetic doppelgänger.

Wendy McGrath’s most recent novel Broke City is the final book in her Santa Rosa Trilogy. Previous novels in the series are Santa Rosa and North East. Her most recent book of poetry, A Revision of Forward, was released in fall 2015. McGrath works in multiple genres. BOX (CD) 2017 is an adaptation of her long poem into spoken word/experimental jazz/noise by QUATRO & SOUND. MOVEMENT 1 from that CD was nominated for a 2018 Edmonton Music Award (Jazz Recording of the Year). Her poetry, fiction, and non-fiction has been widely published. McGrath lives in Edmonton, Alberta on Treaty 6 territory.