Duval’s Birds by Conrad Aiken

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend September 27, 2015   Duval’s Birds   Conrad Aiken

The parrot, screeching, flew out into the darkness, Circled three times above the upturned faces With a great whir of brilliant outspread wings, And then returned to stagger on her finger. She bowed and smiled, eliciting applause… The property man hated her dirty birds. But it had taken years—yes, years—to train them, To shoulder flags, strike bells by tweaking strings, Or climb sedately little flights of stairs. When they were stubborn, she tapped them with a wand, And her eyes glittered a little under the eyebrows. The red one flapped and flapped on a swinging wire; The little white ones winked round yellow eyes.            This poem is in the public domain. About This Poem   “Duval’s Birds” was published in Turns and Movies, and Other Tales in Verse (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1916).   Conrad Aiken was born in Savannah, Georgia, on August 5, 1889. He received the Pulitzer Prize for his book Selected Poems (1929) and the National Book Award for Collected Poems (1953). Aiken died in Savannah in 1973. Poetry by Aiken   Selected Poems (Oxford University Press, 2003) "Swallows" by Leonora Speyer "Ode to a Nightingale" by John Keats "A Bird came down the Walk (328)" by Emily Dickinson Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038