Passings

Passenger pigeon. Carolina parakeet. Eskimo curlew. In this timely collection of elegies, award-winning poet Holly J. Hughes gives voice to these and other bird species that no longer fill our skies. If their names sound a litany of the hundreds of species we’ve lost, these fifteen poems serve as a reminder that their stories are still with us, offering a cautionary tale for the many species whose habitats face threats from climate change. In her afterword, Hughes reminds us that it’s not too late to learn from these birds’ extinction and take action to protect the species that remain. “Take note,” she writes. “These birds are still singing to us. We must listen.”

"In poems at once heartbreaking and illuminating, Holly Hughes gives extinction a very personal face,” writes environmental editor Lorraine Anderson. “She makes it clear that the bell tolls not only for the fifteen species she elegizes, but for us as well.” Recipient of an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 2017, the first printing of Passings by Expedition Press sold out. Wandering Aengus Press is honored to bring this chapbook back into print and give the birds a voice again.