Owls are birds that fascinate us, seeming to exist at the shadowy margins of our human lives. More often heard than seen, their nocturnal cries can be both haunting and exhilarating.

These ten poems celebrate the elusiveness of owls, as well as the thrill of a rare sighting; when a little owl is spotted on the branch of an olive tree in Greece, it looks more like a “small clay jar” than a bird. In another poem, the near-silent flight of a barn owl offers a moment of spellbound intimacy:

“If breath was any animal, it’s this.
Glide and hush-sweep
across the close-by fields of grain.”

from ‘Barn Owl on Newburgh Road’ by Niall Campbell

The poems remind us that an encounter with any wild creature is a gift – and that meeting an owl in a poem can be every bit as magical as meeting one in the woods.