Spending the year with new(ish) books by friends, locals, and other Canadian poets old and new. Follow along daily on BlueSky and Instagram.

Part ekphrasis, part confessional, all good, Wendy McGrath’s latest book of poetry is a bit of a departure from her previous work. “The Beauty of Vultures” pairs Wendy’s words with photos, mostly of birds, by Danny Miles. Yes, Danny Miles the drummer for the Canadian band July Talk. Each of them talk about what brought them to this book together in their respective introductions so I’ll leave the explanations to them in their own words.

I’ve heard Wendy read from this book a couple of times and each time she has read poems that corresponded to the enlargements of some of the photos from the book that she has brought with her. The photos are gorgeous, birds in various states of perch, and there are photos of other animals as well. One of my favourites is a close-up of a deer, peering at us from a yellow background, diffuse sunlight or bokeh of Birds-foot trefoil, from under a small cluster of aspen leaves positioned like a crown. The accompanying poem, ‘A Faun In The Afternoon,’ is delightful, invoking Nijinsky, Bakst, and Debussy. Absolutely delightful, ekphrasis at its best.

What I love most I think about this book though is that it isn’t simply a collection of poems describing art. Wendy also shares with us some personal, confessional poems. Like ‘Infinity And A Guitar,’ a meditation on limitation and parenting told through a gift. There is also what I think is my favourite poem in the book, ‘Air Raid Siren’ which lends us the closing lines of this micro-review. I encourage you to find a copy of “The Beauty of Vultures” at your favourite bookstore or the library. Remember, both authors and publishers, in this case Edmonton’s own NeWest Press, and society at large, benefit from us using the library.

And so, this is what has been driving my creativity this week:

I counted on our Robins to return every spring
pulling worms, then to a nest decorated with red string
I waited for their blue eggs to break open
climbed the tree to see the still-blind babies

but the nest held
only empty shells