Aviaries - Paperback

by Yvonne C. Murphy (Author)

Debut poetry collection chosen by Minnie Bruce Pratt as winner of the Carolina Wren Press Poetry Series prize.

Front Jacket

Aviaries is a first collection of poetry determined to integrate the intellect with lyric intensity. Whether alighting on the public or the private--city streets, parks, apartments, nests, crowds, carnival rides, famous inventors and thinkers, family--these poems do not segregate emotion from thought, logic from intuition, abstractions from concretion. Birds are the central motif and while they often remain themselves, they also evoke the arts and transcendence (flight). The birds are hardy and fragile, persistent yet flighty. They are seekers that embody how humans yearn, pursue, and in spite of splendor along the way, never quite arrive.

Author Biography

Yvonne C. Murphy is an Associate Professor of the Arts at SUNY Empire State College in Syracuse, New York. She received an M.A. from New York University, a Ph.D. from The University of Houston and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Poetry from Stanford University. Her poems have been published widely in U.S. and Canadian anthologies and journals, including Poetry, Black Warrior Review, The Portland Review, EPOCH, Stone Canoe, Redivider, Painted Bride Quarterly, Many Mountains Moving, Literal Latte and Gulf Coast, among many others. She lives in Cazenovia, NY.