Birds Nobody Loves: A Book of Vultures & Grackles

Birds Nobody Loves is an illustrated collection of poems about two of the less popular denizens of the sky. After spending a lot of time watching vultures and grackles around his home in central Texas, author James Brush never ceases to be amazed–and just a little horrified–by the scorn these two creatures illicit. It’s precisely that derision and disdain for these two species that attracted me to them as subject matter for a poetry collection. The grackle poems take a sometimes humorous look at our various fears of the other (and the things that spark those fears: ugliness, alienation, disease, fear of change) while the vulture poems examine themes of mortality and the connections and interrelationships between the human and natural worlds. Most of the poems in this collection have been published in various online and print journals and on James’s blog.