some birds and some words

Browsing in a bookshop today, Things with Wings just happened to stumble across a book called

THE POETRY OF BIRDS

edited by Simon Armitage (who loves birds, apparently) and Tim Dee (who probably likes birds too)

The title is a little bit misleading because one might think that this is a collection of poetry BY birds. Unfortunately, it is not. It is, however, the next best thing i.e. a whole lot of poems ABOUT birds.

The poems contained therein are arranged not by author or by title but alphabetically by bird, so that if you have a burning desire to read a poem about, say, a wagtail -and frankly, who doesn't? - you can just go to 'w' and there, right between 'wren' and some other alphabetically similar bird that T.W.W. can't quite remember, you will find 'Wagtail and Baby' by Thomas Hardy. Which is really great.

(When you consider 'The Poetry of Birds' and then think about how Simon Armitage recently made a documentary where he followed in the footsteps of Sir Gawain and generally spent an hour talking about how amazing 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' is, you will see it is as if S. Armitage is on a campaign to win T.W.W.'s heart. We will tell you now, Mr Armitage, that it is very much working.)