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This page lists anthologies of poems about birds.

The books are listed by publication date with the most recent at the top.

The British Museum Birds

Mavis Pilbeam

Paperback edition

2015

"The British Museums vast collections include wonderful images of birds from all over the world. Some are primarily decorative, whereas Thomas Bewick and the Japanese artist Kitagawa Utamaro chose to show birds in realistic detail, going about their daily lives. Other artists concentrate on scientific accuracy. The endless variety of birds, their freedom of sky, land and water, and especially their song have also inspired writers through the ages. Each striking image in this beautiful anthology is matched with a poem about the same species. Some were composed by our best - loved writers including Shakespeare, Chaucer and Tennyson and others ha ve been selected from less familiar or even anonymous voices around the world. Now in a fresh new paperback format, this is an irresistible gift for anyone who loves birds."

A Prairie’s Not Scary

Paul A. Johnsgard

Zea Books

2012

"Twenty poems and 23 drawings illustrate the integrated habitat and denizens of the North American prairies: mammals, birds, insects, and plants. Probably only 1-3 percent of Nebraska’s original tallgrass prairie still exits. There are very few remaining tallgrass prairies in Nebraska as large as Spring Creek Prairie. They represent important repositories for our natural heritage of native plants and animals. It is not uncommon for tallgrass prairies to have 250-300 species of plants present and several hundred species of insects."

Little Book Of Birds

2012

"A charming addition to the 'Little book of' series from the National Library of Australia. Birds have always been a popular subject of poems in Australia, from large and raucous cockatoos to tiny secretive wrens. In this book, beautiful images from the NLA collections illustrate poems by Judith Wright, James McAuley, John Blight, Mark OConnor, Diane Fahey and other Australian poets. The artists represented in this publication include William T. Cooper, John William Lewin, John Gould, Neville Cayley, Ebenezer Edward Gostelow and Betty Temple Watts."

The Poetry of Birds

Editor:Simon Armitage and Tim Dee

Paperback edition

2011

"Birds are the most obvious wild things we have around us. They are much watched and much loved. A remarkable number of poets have noticed birds and British bird poetry is as old as British poetry. Some of the best known, and most loved, poems in English are bird poems. Here poet Simon Armitage and amateur ornithologist Tim Dee gather the best of the past and the most promising of the present, as well as some overlooked gems. Poems are organised according to ornithological classification, and there are detailed ornithological notes which illuminate the poems and provide fascinating information on the birds. Altogether this is a truly original anthology."

The RSPB Anthology of Wildlife Poetry

Editor: Celia Warren

A & C Black

2011

"From birds, mammals and fish to trees, flowers and insects, the richness of the British natural world is explored through a stunning collection of the very best in wildlife poetry. Traditional verses sit alongside contemporary classics and specially commissioned new work by some of Britain's top poets. This family-friendly anthology includes many lively poems with real child-appeal along with more mature works, while fantastic full colour and black and white illustrations make this book a pleasure to browse. Beautifully crafted and produced in consultation with the RSPB, this perfect gift is a treasure trove of poetic delights."

A Spicing of Birds

Poems By Emily Dickinson

Illustrations By Early Masters Of Bird Art

Illustrations by Louis Agassiz Fuertes, Alexander Wilson, John H. Hall, Allan brooks, Robert Ridgway, John James Audubon, Mark Catesby, Cordelia J. Stanwood

Wesleyan University Press

2010

"A Spicing of Birds is a unique and beautifully illustrated anthology, pairing poems from one of America's most revered poets with evocative classic ornithological art. Emily Dickinson had a great love of birds—in her collected poems, birds are mentioned 222 times, sometimes as the core inspiration of the poem. However, in existing anthologies of Dickinson's work, little acknowledgment is made of her close connection to birds. This book contains thirty-seven of Dickinson's poems featuring birds common to New England. Many lesser-known poems are brought to light, renewing our appreciation for Dickinson's work."

Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems About Birds

Editor: Billy Collins

Columbia University Press

2009

"In this beautiful collection of poems and paintings, Billy Collins, former U.S. poet laureate, joins with David Allen Sibley, America's foremost bird illustrator, to celebrate the winged creatures that have inspired so many poets to sing for centuries. From Catullus and Chaucer to Robert Browning and James Wright, poets have long treated birds as powerful metaphors for beauty, escape, transcendence, and divine expression. Here, in this substantial anthology, more than one hundred contemporary and classic poems are paired with close to sixty original, ornithologically precise illustrations. Part poetry collection, part field guide, part art book, Bright Wings presents verbal and visual interpretations of the natural world and reminds us of our intimate connection to the "bright wings" around us. Each in their own way, these poems and pictures honor the enchanting creatures that have been, and continue to be, longtime collaborators with the poet's and painter's art.Poet and bird pairings include: Wallace Stevens and the Blackbird; Emily Dickinson and the Robin; Marianne Moore and the Frigate Pelican; Thomas Hardy and the Goldfinch; Sylvia Plath and the Pheasant; John Updike and the Seagull; Walt Whitman and the Eagle; Billy Collins and the Sparrow."

The Poetry of Birds

Editor:Simon Armitage and Tim Dee

2009

"Bird poetry is as old as British poetry itself, and a remarkable number of poets have written poems about birds. Indeed some of the most famous poems in the language concern birds, from Keats's nightingale and Shelley's skylark to Yeats's swans and Hardy's thrush. In this wonderful anthology poet Simon Armitage and birdwatching enthusiast Tim Dee gather together the best of the past and the present, including those famous poems but also many overlooked gems. And in a fascinating divergence from standard anthology practice, the poems are organized according to ornithological classification, beginning with poems by Marianne Moore and David Wright on the ostrich and the emperor penguin and ending with Emily Dickinson and Wallace Stevens on the oriole and the blackbird."

The British Museum Birds

Mavis Pilbeam

2008

"The British Museum’s collections include images of birds from all over the world. Some artists have used them purely for their decorative qualities, as in Indian miniatures and Chinese bird and flower paintings. Thomas Bewick and the Japanese artist Kitagawa Utamaro, in his ‘Myriad Birds’, presented birds in realistic detail as they went about their daily lives, while other artists concentrate on scientific accuracy. The endless variety of birds, their freedom of sky, land, water, and especially their song have also inspired writers. Each image in this anthology is accompanied by a poem or extract from some of our best-loved writers – including Shakespeare, Chaucer and Wordsworth – along with contributions from less familiar as well as anonymous writers from across the world."

The Social Decline of the Oystercatcher

Sue Vickerman

2005

"Sue Vickerman made her debut with her pamphlet Shag (Arrowhead Press 2003). Her poems, punctuated by keenly observed birds, were described as edgy, elemental, and tender: 'straight-talking narratives... dense and gritty, at home on the edge of things' (Linda France, editor, Bloodaxe's Sixty Women Poets). The poems in this, her first full-length collection, continue to range over birds and the world of human relationships with a direct and uncompromising gaze."

Birds in the Hand: Fiction and Poetry about Birds

Editor: Dylan Nelson and Kent Nelson

2004

"From the myths of ancient Greece to the fables of Aesop, from Chaucer to contemporary poetry and fiction, birds are central to literature because they connect us intimately to the natural world. Whether we watch birds at our feeders, travel vast distances to identify rare species, or simply pause in a busy day to listen to the coo of a dove or the trill of a warbler, birds sustain us. Birds in the Hand is a collection of contemporary fiction and poetry that explores the complex, often startling ways in which birds shed light upon our lives. In work from a diverse and celebrated group of contemporary authors such as Charles Baxter, T.C. Boyle, Jim Harrison, Flannery O'Connor, Pattiann Rogers, Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott, Ethan Canin, and Jorie Graham, birds are sources of inspiration, confrontation, and revelation. These stories and poems take us from New York and Hoboken to the Salton Sea and the wilds of Montana, from a hardware store to the westernmost Aleutian island, from a prison to marshes, forests, and seacoasts. Field guides and natural history books cannot capture the essence of why birds thrill us. Birds in the Hand uses the vitality and nuance of fiction and poetry to get at the heart of our mysterious sense of birds and the way they can reflect the brightest and darkest aspects of our own natures."

Birds

Judith Wright

2003

"The poems in Judith Wright's Birds volume have long been among the best loved poems written in Australia. Many people have grown up with the beguiling rhythms of 'Black Cockatoos', or the jauntiness of 'The Wagtail'. Now in this new edition, commemorating 25 years since the poems were last published as a single collection, these works appear with full-colour illustrations' and a personal introduction by the poet's - daughter Meredith McKinney, for whom many of the poems were written. As a fitting celebration of Judith Wright (1915-2000) as both writer and passionate environmentalist, and to more fully reveal the centrality of birds in the poet's imagination, this new edition also contains six additional bird poems drawn from across her work."

An Exaltation of Skylarks

Stewart Beer

SMH Books

1995

2nd edition: 2004

A 2300-year Anthology to the Skylark in prose and poetry.

Bird Words: Poetic Images of Wild Birds

Hugh David Loxdale

2003

"This selection of poetry conveys the author's passion for birds, co-inhabitants of our world, whose appearance, voice and behaviour, especially flight, continue to inspire. This book will appeal to all who delight in seeing wild birds in a natural setting, whether in the garden or park or as an integral part of the lanscape. The poems concern birds from a wide variety of places around the world, - from the woods of England and the mountains of Arizona to the forests of a Caribbean island and the wild southern oceans, home of the Wandering Albatross."

On Wings of Song: Poems about Birds

J.D. McClatchy

2000

"From backyard to barnyard, from hawks to hummingbirds, from pelicans to peacocks, from Coleridge's albatross to Keats's nightingale to Poe's raven-all manner of feathered beings, the inspiration for poetic flights of fancy through the ages, are gathered together in this delightful volume. Some of the winged treasures: Emily Dickinson on the jay; Gertrude Stein on pigeons; Seamus Heaney on turkeys; Tennyson on the eagle; Spenser on the merry cuckoo; Amy Clampitt on the whippoorwill; Po Chü-i on cranes; John Updike on seagulls; W.S. Merwin on the duck; Elizabeth Bishop on the sandpiper; Rilke on flamingoes; Margaret Atwood on vultures; the Bible on the ostrich; Sylvia Plath on the owl; Melville on the hawk; Yeats on wild swans; Virgil on the harpies; Thomas Hardy on the darkling thrush; and Wallace Stevens on thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird."

Flights of Imagination: Illustrated Anthology of Bird Poetry

Editor: Mike Mockler

1982

The Penguin Book of Bird Poetry

Editor: Peggy Munsterberg

1980

The Poetry Of Birds

Editor: Samuel Carr

1976

Chorus: An Anthology of Bird Poems

Editor: Susanne Knowles

1969

"More than a hundred kinds of birds from albatross to yellowhammer seen through the eyes of poets of the Old World and the New, from the 4th century B.C. to 1969. From Aristophanes, who used them as political symbols, to the Australian poet who stood, motionless and enchanted, while a honeyeater pulled hairs from his head for nesting materials; from a Persian's bird parliament to Ogden Nash's four-line dismissal of canaries."

Wings Of Light: An Anthology for Bird-lovers

Compiler: Garth Christian

1965

An anthology of bird related poetry and prose.

In Praise of Birds. An Anthology for Friends

Editor: Gwen Hilditch

1954

A collection of poetry and prose.

A Treasury Of Bird Poems

Editor: Charles Henry Poole

1911

With The Birds: Selected Poems From The Best English And American Authors

Editor: Rosetta M. Munroe

1891

The Poet's Birds

Phil Robinson

1883