Alison Ballantyne
Poetry Corner Most of the poems I have explored in ‘The Harrier’ can be found in ‘The Poetry of Birds’, edited by Simon Armitage and Tim Dee ISBN 978 0 141 02711 1. I recommend purchasing this text, not only because the choice of poems is insightful, enjoyable and thoughtprovoking, but also because the anthology contains an essay by Armitage where he explores aspects of why people enjoy birds, as well as Dee’s subjective and entertaining notes on the specific birds mentioned in the collection.
Bird Lady Under a pine in Vondelpark the Bird Lady has fashioned an impromptu feed-table, arrives each morning laden with bags of sunflower seeds and kibbled maize and proceeds to feed the feral Rose-rings (Psittacula krameri, 40 centimetres, general plumage green, yellowish underwing, in male, rose collar encircling hindneck, nape suffused bluish) and Alexandrines (Psittacula eupatria, 58 centimetres, a group of pristine males, occiput and cheeks suffused with bluish-grey, black stripe through lower cheek, pink collar encircling hindneck, red slash on secondary coverts, massive vermillion bill, call - a skreeching kee-ak), which, were it not for her genial dottiness would not survive the severe calorie-wasting winter, and we would be undernourished. Peter Reading 30
THE HAR R I ER – S u mme r 2 0 1 7
Photo: James Hume
Why, asks Armitage, have so many poets (and there are thousands of bird poems) chosen to write about birds? He suggests (as does Dee in some of his writing) that, unlike a great deal of wildlife, birds can be seen and heard on a daily basis like it or not. Peter Reading’s poem ‘Parakeet’ explores the different ways birds are enjoyed by people.
