Bright Wings.

COLLINS, Billy; Paintings by David Allen Sibley.

$475.00

Item Number: 148016

New York: Columbia University, 2009.

First edition of this wonderful collaboration between Collins and Sibley. Octavo, original boards, illustrated throughout. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the title page, “To Georgianna and Armando I miss you! Billy Collins.” The recipient, Georgianna Orsini is an author and poet as well as former partner of Leonard Cohen. Fine in a fine dust jacket.

n this beautiful collection of poems and paintings, Billy Collins, former U.S. poet laureate, joins with David Allen Sibley, America's foremost bird illustrator, to celebrate the winged creatures that have inspired so many poets to sing for centuries. From Catullus and Chaucer to Robert Browning and James Wright, poets have long treated birds as powerful metaphors for beauty, escape, transcendence, and divine expression. Here, in this substantial anthology, more than one hundred contemporary and classic poems are paired with close to sixty original, ornithologically precise illustrations. Part poetry collection, part field guide, part art book, Bright Wings presents verbal and visual interpretations of the natural world and reminds us of our intimate connection to the "bright wings" around us. Each in their own way, these poems and pictures honor the enchanting creatures that have been, and continue to be, longtime collaborators with the poet's and painter's art.