{"product_id":"birds-of-america-isbn-9780593980033","title":"Birds of America","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn evocative, uplifting, and thoughtfully illustrated collection of poems steeped in the natural world, examining life and healing in the aftermath of trauma\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eSee how the eagles lift now, bound by surviving together.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eWe only get one shot at this. Save\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ewhat you can. Love even what you can’t save.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat does it mean to love someone, and to love the world, when what we love is vanishing? In \u003ci\u003eBirds of America\u003c\/i\u003e, award-winning poet Chera Hammons reckons with the intersection of personal violence and the violence humans have wrought upon our planet and explores the beauty that remains among the ruins. With graceful lyricism, she translates seemingly mundane scenes from the natural world—two eagles locked together in a tandem dive, the fresh sweetness of wild onions—into exquisite revelations of human feeling, inviting us to glimpse the hidden magic of the everyday.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor anyone who struggles to remain grounded when it feels like the world is falling apart, each poem in \u003ci\u003eBirds of America\u003c\/i\u003e offers a meditative lens with which to view the fraught relationships we have with the living beings around us, which come to life through exquisite artwork by acclaimed illustrator Sophie Lucido Johnson. Hammons encourages us to love fiercely, to embrace a future where our damage teaches us to be kinder people, and to never give up on the beauty of our world.“\u003ci\u003eBirds of America\u003c\/i\u003e is a pliant, wise clarion collection that draws on the natural world to offer testimony, witness, and, ultimately, healing. This is a birder’s guide to survival, with the poet as our binoculars—trained outward toward the sky and inward toward the most vulnerable chambers of the heart.”\u003cb\u003e—Jennifer Givhan, author of \u003ci\u003eBelly to the Brutal \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eSalt Bones\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“How much I enjoyed Chera Hammons’s \u003ci\u003eBirds of America\u003c\/i\u003e. It’s gorgeous (also witty, harrowing and moving)!”\u003cb\u003e—Ron Charles\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In \u003ci\u003eBirds of America\u003c\/i\u003e, Chera Hammons listens like an expert. She listens to birdsong and weather, to hunger, debt, illness, and inheritance, and to all the fragile bargains that let a life continue. Like a nest woven with some of your own hair, these poems intertwine natural history with family history, where drought, extinction, genetic chance, and economic precariousness mirror the risks carried by bodies, animal and human alike. Hammons excels at holding contradiction: wanting the storm and fearing it, loving what may be lost, knowing that care itself can also wound. She renders attention as a kind of labor, and hope as something earned rather than promised.”\u003cb\u003e—Taylor Mali, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Whetting Stone\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“These days, there’s a lot to think about. Some days, there’s too much. When time doesn’t fly, birds do. The medicinal lightness and brightness of birds—seeing birds, hearing birds—can set the world almost straight again. Chera Hammons’ insightful eye gives new voice to birds, striking just the right chord when a morning needs to get off on the right note, or an evening needs centering before slumber.”\u003cb\u003e—Carl Safina, author of \u003ci\u003eAlfie and Me\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eBirds of America\u003c\/i\u003e is an achievement. The poems sing like the titular animals and probe again and again at our own animal heart. They ask questions that hurt and offer beauty, heartbreak, and balm. This book reminds what poetry is capable of.”\u003cb\u003e—José Olivarez, author of \u003ci\u003ePromises of Gold \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eCitizen Illegal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eChera Hammons \u003c\/b\u003eis a winner of the PEN Southwest Book Award through PEN Texas and the Helen C. Smith Memorial Award through the Texas Institute of Letters. She holds an MFA from Goddard College and formerly served as writer-in-residence at West Texas A\u0026amp;M University. Her work, which is rooted in love for the natural world, appears in \u003ci\u003eBaltimore Review, Pleiades, Poetry, Rattle, The Southern Review, The Sun, The Texas Observer\u003c\/i\u003e, and elsewhere. She lives on the windswept prairies of the Texas Panhandle. In her free time, she enjoys reading, birdwatching, spending time with her horses and donkeys, and caring for her houseplant collection, which is slowly but surely taking over her entire living space.Illustrations by Sophie Lucido Johnson","brand":"Dial Press Trade Paperback","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48232981496037,"sku":"NP9780593980033","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780593980033.jpg?v=1767722644","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/birds-of-america-isbn-9780593980033","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}