Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
"Well observed, careful, and shot through with sadness, this eighth set of poems . . . is [Baker's] best." The Believer
Review
"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
Synopsis
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, an two of us, one of those just endearments Apt clarities. Kiss on the lips of hope"
Synopsis
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.
Synopsis
"This collection is moving, emotionally raw, yet subtle and careful."--Benjamin S. Grossberg,
About the Author
David Baker's last collection was Never-Ending Birds, which won the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize. His many honors include fellowships and awards from the Poetry Society of America, the Pushcart Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Baker lives in Granville, Ohio, is the poetry editor of the Kenyon Review, and is the Thomas B. Fordham Chair of Poetry and Professor of English at Denison University.