<div>Before Helen Macdonald chronicled the experience of adopting a goshawk in her bestselling book<i>H Is for Hawk</i>, she was a poet. With a masterful ear for musical phrasing as well as an utterly unique way of seeing the earth around her, she writes deft, daring verse; her language is melodic and opulent while her observations are shrewd and incisive. From &quot;the new world&quot;:<br><br><i>What is a hand for, but to be held?</i> It is raining<br>in Georgia it is raining all over the world [. . .]<br><br>every moment describes some other music<br>and I cannot remember banality ever existing.<br><br>These poems are lush, lyrical and vibrantly evocative, parsing images from the landscape and then turning inward to consider the human consciousness that witnesses, processes, and manipulates the landscape. From an outstanding literary innovator,<i>Shaler’s Fish</i> is a joyous celebration of the natural world and a profound meditation on being alive in it.</div>