Bird Notes (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781635343328)

Bird Notes is a collection of 24 poems blending the traditional sonnet form with a clear modern voice. Some subjects are drawn from nature ("Audubon in verse," according to another poet), while other birds are mythical and metaphorical. Readers will observe an amazing variety: Northern gannets diving for fish in Scotland; a snowy owl in an Ohio field; ring-billed gulls on the Outer Banks of Kitty Hawk, N.C.; a finch in a nursing home aviary; an indigo macaw in an ecological art exhibit. Readers will explore superstition in "A Murder of Crows," theology in the sparrows of "A Question of Disparity," and psychology in the albatross of "Guilt." A few of these poems appeared in Hughes's national award-winning sonnet collection Breaking Weather ((2014); "Phoenix" won a first place award in the 2016 Ohio Poetry Day competition. Betsy Hughes taught English for 30 years at The Miami Valley School in Dayton, Ohio, where she lives with her husband Jim Hughes, Wright State University emeritus professor of English. Together they enjoy discussion and critique with the Wright Library Poets and the Dayton Poetry Circle.