Wings Without Birds

Synopsis

Brian Henry’s Wings Without Birds reconfigures the quotidian, making the everyday a site for innovation and investigation. Although diverse in form, these poems continually return to explorations of family, time, selfhood, and physical space. Moving through marriage and parenthood, the house and the backyard, Henry’s poems consider ways of being simultaneously singular and plural. Although known for having a dark and satirical sensibility, he brings compassion and self-deprecating humor to Wings Without Birds, delving into what binds people to each other. At the center of the book, the long poem “Where We Stand Now” offers a meditative stream of quotidiana that captures both the daily and the domestic with tenderness, wit, and vigor. With other poets who have informed his aesthetic – particularly James Schuyler, Kenneth Koch, and John Forbes – as the book’s presiding spirits, Henry continually explores how to occupy a moment, how to identify “what dominates the near.”

Praise for Previous Work

‘Brian Henry … entices the reader into the hidden crevices and empty spaces of daily existence.’ —PN Review

‘Henry displays a linguistic and intellectual exuberance comparable to Paul Muldoon.’ —Magma