Book excerpt: “Devoted readers of H Is for Hawk will find Macdonald’s gift for stunning language, patient curiosity, and expansive wisdom on full display in her poems.”—Publishers Weekly From the naturalist and author of the New York Times bestseller H is for Hawk, which appeared on more than twenty-five Best Books of the Year lists, Shaler’s Fish is a collection of poetry that roams both the outer and inner landscapes of the poet’s universe, seamlessly fusing reflections on language, science, and literature with the loamy environments of the natural worlds around her. Moving between the epic (war, history, art, myth, philosophy) and the specific (CNN, Ancient Rome, Auden, Merleau-Ponty), Helen Macdonald examines with humor and intellect what it means to be awake and watchful in the world. These are poems that probe and question, within whose nimble ecosystems we are as likely to encounter Schubert as we are “a hand of violets,” Isaac Newton as a “winged quail on turf.” Nothing escapes Macdonald’s eye and every creature herein—from the smallest bird to the loftiest thinker—holds a significant place in her poems. “Macdonald is a poet of vision and sound, oracular one moment and playful the next, whose first love and only loyalty is to the music of words.” –O, the Oprah Magazine