These Hollowed Bones by Amelia Díaz Ettinger

I am not a bird person. Reading through each of the nearly fifty poems named after a different bird in These Hollowed Bones, Amelia Díaz Ettinger’s fourth collection, I recognized maybe a quarter of the species. I did not come to this murmuration of poems already knowing their colorings and distinctive markings, their behaviors or their calls. Yet Ettinger’s direct and observational language drew them to life effortlessly before me: a mischief of magpies descending on a skunk carcass, the white-crown sparrow a fat brown scoundrel with prison lines on her head, and the black-capped chickadees, after a blizzard… speckl[ing] / the blinding snow with dee-dee-dee. Ettinger’s poems invite the reader in to carefully study each bird she turns her attention toward—to see the ways in which they are different than and the same as us, the ways we can examine our own behavior through their behaviors, and the ways we are creating a world inhospitable to both them and ourselves.

The poems in these pages range quite a bit considering the avian focus, and most are used as a vehicle for reflection. Some are written from the perspective of the birds themselves, while others are directly addressed by the poet. In each of them, though, the study of their movements stir deep connection with the speaker, as when in “Brewer’s or Grackle” she notes, i’m always home, but wistfulness follows / me as tail feathers on a bird. The homesickness she feels at all times is pulled to the surface just by looking at the blackbird, which takes me back / to a childhood of tropical rain, Fichus trees, / and a plaza filled with the chinchilín song. Birds are a way of tracking her habitat, her life, and the observations of her youth in another home. She describes herself in terms of the same bird, her wistfulness dragging behind her like plumage.

In “Brown-headed Cowbird,” a persona poem, Ettinger shifts to taking on the bird’s perspective entirely:

I know what it’s said about me
that I am a bad mother
a brood parasite
—no
I know I relinquish
my eggs to the care of others
but notice; I take my time
watching in torture-wait until
I find her,
the perfect host

It is a delightfully jarring effect to begin a poem about the way the world views “bad mothers” who relinquish their children to the care of others, to claim it in the first-person perspective. Ettinger lovingly refutes the idea, refuses the judgment, and finds empathy for this cowbird that must give up its eggs to be hatched by another. Ettinger’s take on the natural world is not always expected, and that dissonance changed how I looked at the animal world.

After a blizzard, they speckle the blinding snow with dee dee dee.

My favorite pieces, however, are those that highlight the disparity between human concepts and the behaviors found in the natural world. In “Wilson’s Phalarope” Ettinger notes wistfully that she admires the way the female leaves your eggs / for your mates to tidy up and care // are you aware how inspirational you are? At times the longing for a different life, one more equitable and serene and more in line with nature, is one of the reasons behind the speaker’s dedicated focus on the birds. That longing is never more starkly addressed than in “Western Bluebird”:

in the morning,

the Bluebird carried a fecal sack
far away from her nest
a tidy demonstration of care and order

while that evening

my lover discharged his gun inside our home
five deafening bullets—each shot a mark
for a life he finds floundering its purpose

The bluebird’s willingness and ability to literally handle her shit with dignity and poise so as to care for her family are directly contrasted with the undirected violence of male rage—a rage that arises specifically from a lack of direction and fulfillment. The bluebird is seen in terms of correct and simple living: tidy, care, order, while human beings, even one’s own lover, flounder and deafen.

As before, though, these poems that focus their brief attention on each bird are not building toward a single thesis statement. The observation is the point, and the various ways we identify with nature can be filled in and fully experienced by stepping into each moment and finding what desires and sorrows arise through that simple act of observation.

Ettinger’s poems are quiet moments of pure attention that have invited me to listen to those other creatures I share the world with. It is the perfect reference for when I hear a plain song of the towhee (“Towhee”) and remind myself that it is a clear song / a celebration song, and perhaps, most importantly, a necessary reminder / to sing.

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Brenna Crotty is the Senior Editor for CALYX. Her reviews and humor articles have been published in CALYX Journal, Cracked.com, and CollegeHumor.com. She lives in Portland, OR, with her husband, son, and cat.