Full-colour, Perfect-bound Paperback, 210 x 148mm, 44pp

Every species of bird in the world has a common English name. John Bevis uses this glossary of labels, strange and commonplace, with their surprising skeins of meanings and sounds, as the building blocks of poems that are variously formal, lyrical, and narrative. They are presented as providential finds, field notes from an antique and richly illustrated journal. Letter-Winged Kite explores the tropes of naming, and the reaches of poetic language, as it celebrates birds in all their wonderful diversity.

“What a find: this is a lovely, inventive, bio-lexico-diverse gem of a book.”

- Paul Farley

“A small masterpiece of invention and understated wit from one of the UK's brightest writers on birds and words. Bevis has a fine ear for language and a flair for form, and takes infectious joy in ransacking the World Bird List for its poetry and serendipitous wordplay. A marvellous book.”

- Richard Smyth

“Birds and poetry have long gone together. Here Bevis has made something that speaks to this twined thread but which is wholly new as well – bird poems which glisten and sing and which are made out of the very things they are about. It is lovely, fun and thought provoking at once.”

- Tim Dee