Poetics: Corvids, a crow-themed anthology from Bainbridge Island Press, is now available for pre-order. It features two poems by me, “Corvid Thanatology” and “Twa Corbies.”
POETICS: Corvids explores the ancient kinship between ravens, crows, and their corvid kin through the lens of contemporary poetry. This inaugural volume brings together diverse voices examining these intelligent, mysterious birds that have captivated human imagination across cultures and centuries.
From Edgar Allan Poe’s haunting “Nevermore” to Norse mythology’s Huginn and Muninn, corvids have long served as poetry’s dark scribes—creatures capable of carrying profound meaning in deceptively simple forms. Like poets themselves, these birds possess an “eye for resemblances,” seeing connections others miss and reflecting our world back to us transformed.
Editor Tamarah Rockwood has curated over 60 poems from contributors worldwide, celebrating corvids as tricksters and prophets, symbols of death and wisdom, harbingers of transformation. The collection ranges from intimate observations of backyard crows to mythic explorations of ravens as divine messengers, each poem honoring the corvid’s ability to mirror our own human contradictions.
Grounded in Aristotelian poetics, this anthology demonstrates how poetry—like the corvid’s call—can reveal universal truths through the particular magic of language, rhythm, and metaphor.
“Corvid Thanatology,” which previously won the Laura Kirchman Manuelidis ’63 Science and Literary Arts Contest at Sarah Lawrence College, has also been nominated by the anthology’s editor for a Pushcart Prize:
Printed books will begin shipping on September 23, 2025. Order your copy at Bainbridge Island Press’ website.
Amanda Grace Shu 