Never-Ending Birds
Poems
1 April 2011
Description
“This collection is moving, emotionally raw, yet subtle and careful.”—Benjamin S. Grossberg, Antioch Review
Part map, part travelogue, part chronicle, part autobiography, Never-Ending Birds explores a variety of landscapes from Midwestern villages to the boroughs of big cities. Steeped in story—divorce, loss, raising a child, uncovering old worlds and new loves—these poems are gracefully lived in, lived through, with mystery and beauty.
from “Never-Ending Birds”:
That’s us pointing to the clouds. Those are clouds
of birds, now we see, one whole cloud of birds.
There we are, pointing out the car windows.
October. Gray-blue-white olio of birds.
Never-ending birds, you called the first time—
years we say it, the three of us, any
two of us, one of those just endearments.
Apt clarities. Kiss on the lips of hope.
from “Never-Ending Birds”:
That’s us pointing to the clouds. Those are clouds
of birds, now we see, one whole cloud of birds.
There we are, pointing out the car windows.
October. Gray-blue-white olio of birds.
Never-ending birds, you called the first time—
years we say it, the three of us, any
two of us, one of those just endearments.
Apt clarities. Kiss on the lips of hope.
Reviews
"Well observed, careful, and shot through with sadness, this eighth set of poems . . . is [Baker’s] best." — Publishers Weekly
"This book [is] sharper and stronger than the calmer poems that Baker has written before. . . . His poems show a life almost helplessly regretful, fortunate in obvious ways, yet excruciating in its limits." — Stephen Burt, The Believer
Awards
Shortlisted — Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, 2011
Winner — Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize, 2011
Also By: David Baker 
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