When we were birds : poems /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Wilkins, Joe, author.
Uniform title:Poems. Selections
Imprint:Fayetteville : The University of Arkansas Press, 2016.
©2016
Description:1 online resource
Language:English
Series:Miller Williams poetry series
Subject:American poetry -- 21st century.
POETRY -- American -- General.
American poetry.
Electronic books.
Format: E-Resource Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/12588667
Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:9781610755832
1610755839
9781557286970
1557286973
Notes:Online resource; title from PDF title page (EBSCO, viewed January 4, 2016).
Summary:In When We Were Birds, Joe Wilkins wrestles his attention away from the griefs, deprivations, and high prairies of his Montana childhood and turns toward "the bean-rusted fields and gutted factories of the Midwest," toward ordinary injustice and everyday sadness, toward the imminent birth of his son and his own confusions in taking up the mantle of fatherhood, toward faith and grace, legacy and luck. A panoply of voices are at play--the escaped convict, the late-night convenience store clerk, and the drowned child all have their say--and as this motley chorus rises and crests, we begin to understand something of what binds us and makes us human: while the world invariably breaks all our hearts, Wilkins insists that is the very "place / hope lives, in the breaking." Within a notable range of form, concern, and voice, the poems here never fail to sing. Whether praiseful or interrogating, When We Were Birds is a book of flight, light, and song. "When we were birds," Wilkins begins, "we veered & wheeled, we flapped & looped-- / it's true, we flew."
Awards:"2016 finalist Miller Williams poetry prize"--Cover.