Birds of America

Poems

By: Chera Hammons

Narrated by: Chera Hammons

An evocative, uplifting, and thoughtful collection of poems steeped in the natural world, examining life and healing in the aftermath of trauma

“An achievement . . . This book reminds us what poetry is capable of.”—José Olivarez, author of Promises of Gold

See how the eagles lift now, bound by surviving together.
We only get one shot at this. Save
what you can. Love even what you can’t save.

What does it mean to love someone, and to love the world, when what we love is vanishing? In Birds of America, 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.

For anyone who struggles to remain grounded when it feels like the world is falling apart, each poem in Birds of America offers a meditative lens with which to view the fraught relationships we have with the living beings around us. 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.

Critic reviews

“How much I enjoyed Chera Hammons’s Birds of America. It’s gorgeous (also witty, harrowing and moving)!”—Ron Charles

“These poems move seamlessly between the wonder of the natural world and dissonance of our domestic lives. They ask that we hold them together and consider what each might teach us. I will be thinking about these poems for a long time.”—Clint Smith, author of Above Ground and How the Word Is Passed

“The poems sing like the titular animals and probe again and again at our own animal hearts. They ask questions that hurt and offer beauty, heartbreak, and balm.”—José Olivarez, author of Promises of Gold

“Hammons’s insight 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.”—Carl Safina, author of Alfie and Me

“These poems ruffle, they linger, and at all costs, they remember the thorny trail that a woman must take to survive.”—Olivia Gatwood, author of Life of the Party

“These poems weave together natural history with family history, where drought, extinction, 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.”—Taylor Mali, author of The Whetting Stone

“Birds of America 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.”—Jennifer Givhan, author of Belly to the Brutal and Salt Bones