Wild Familiars (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798899902857)

Wild Familiars is a finalist in the 2024 Finishing Line Press chapbook competition. The collection embraces the nature of birds to convey observations on life and mortality. The tone is one of appreciation and acceptance, rather than fear. Ducks pair and glide: "O for such a shadowing", dead birds are honored: "my feather cache". Birds are held: "faint body heat through feathers", released: "I fly". Sometimes birds briefly inhabit a poem: "parting wing beats", "reflections that wobble with a swallow swoop". Sometimes birds fully dominate an incident or narrate a persona poem. The poems utilize a variety forms, word play and music. Wildness in birds and in ourselves is valued for its intensity.