📖 Book Review ~ Ten Poems about Birds from Candlestick Press

Candlestick Press
First published 2017
Revised November 2025

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this pamphlet 

Our smallest creatures seem to demand the most rapt attention. The poems in this revised edition of our much-loved title suggest that there’s something in the nature of a bird that makes it particularly suited to the small and intense space that is a poem.

The ten selections are little miracles in themselves, capturing the quirks of habit or appearance that distinguish one species from another. For Jean Atkin a chough is an embodiment of King Arthur, while for Katrina Porteous a skylark offers:

“…all the music the heart needs,

Full of its sudden fall, silent fields.”

from ‘Skylark’ by Katrina Porteous

The poems beautifully imagine the brief and joyful lives of birds, while teasing out what thrills and moves us when we encounter them. A poem, it transpires, can reveal just as much as a pair of binoculars.

Poems by Jean Atkin, Alison Brackenbury, John Clare, Emily Dickinson, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Rebecca Goss, Thomas Hardy, Caleb Parkin, Katrina Porteous and Lynne Wycherley.

Donation to The Owls Trust 

📖 My Review..

I’m extremely fortunate to have an interesting collection of birds visit our garden bird feeder. Nothing fancy, just chattering sparrows, chirpy robins, excitable starlings and mellifluous blackbirds, but they’re all a delightful addition to the garden and such fun to observe. This anthology of ten beautifully written poems about birds all capture the distinct personality of these tiny creatures. 

To hear their hopeful song as they herald spring is something special to treasure and captured beautifully in this lovely poem:

From “Hope” is a thing with feathers by Emily Dickinson 

“Hope” is a thing with feathers-

That perches in the soul

And sings a tune without the words-

And never stops -at-all..’

I will always remember the pure joy of observing a murmuration of starlings and feeling the beat of thousands of tiny wings or of regularly seeing those long  ‘V’ formations of birds as they fly overhead in spring and autumn :

I sense an agitation in the sky,

long Vs trailing like pennants

Altocirrus, swans white

As the tundra they come from

From Berwick Swans at Ouse Washes by Lynne Wycherley

Originally published in 2017 this anthology of Ten Poems about Birds has been reissued with a striking new cover. Each of the poems are a delightful addition and bring something special to treasure. It would be a delightful gift instead of a card for any ornithologist or simply a reminder that we should all enjoy the special kind of magic birds bring into our lives.

 

About the Publisher 

Candlestick Press is a small, independent press publishing sumptuously produced poetry pamphlets that serve as a wonderful alternative to a greetings card, with matching envelopes and bookmarks left blank for your message. Their subjects include Mountains, Clouds, Walking, Birds, Wine and Happiness. Candlestick Press pamphlets are stocked by chain and independent bookshops, galleries and garden centres nationwide and available to order online.

Twitter/X @poetrycandle 

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