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Book Synopsis

Selected by Maggie Smith for the 2023 Ballard Spahr Prize for Poetry, this debut collection of poems explores the aftermath of history’s most powerful forces: devotion, disaster, and us.

Rooted in the Gulf Coast, A History of Half-Birds measures the line between love and ruin. Part poet, part anthropologist, Caroline Harper New digs into dark places—a cave, a womb, a hurricane—to trace how violence born of devotion manifests not only in our human relationships, but also in our connections to the natural and animal worlds. Everywhere in these pages, tenderness is coupled with brutality: a deer eats a baby bird, a lover restrains another. “I promised / a love poem,” New proclaims, then teaches us about the anglerfish, how it “attracts its mate / and prey with the same lure.”

In New’s exceptional voice, familiar concepts take on a shade of the fantastic. A woman tas

Ballard Spahr Prize 2023 Winner

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    A Paperback by Caroline Harper New

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      Publisher: Milkweed Editions
      Publication Date: 1/29/2024
      ISBN13: 9781571315304, 978-1571315304
      ISBN10: 1571315306
      Also in:
      Poetry

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      Selected by Maggie Smith for the 2023 Ballard Spahr Prize for Poetry, this debut collection of poems explores the aftermath of history’s most powerful forces: devotion, disaster, and us.

      Rooted in the Gulf Coast, A History of Half-Birds measures the line between love and ruin. Part poet, part anthropologist, Caroline Harper New digs into dark places—a cave, a womb, a hurricane—to trace how violence born of devotion manifests not only in our human relationships, but also in our connections to the natural and animal worlds. Everywhere in these pages, tenderness is coupled with brutality: a deer eats a baby bird, a lover restrains another. “I promised / a love poem,” New proclaims, then teaches us about the anglerfish, how it “attracts its mate / and prey with the same lure.”

      In New’s exceptional voice, familiar concepts take on a shade of the fantastic. A woman tas

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