Joy is the Justice We Give Ourselves

March 1, 2024
Poet, wildlife biologist, birder, professor, and MacArthur fellow Lanham (Sparrow Envy, 2021) extends his clarion exploration of nature, race, place, and birding in a collection of poems and short prose pieces inspired by his grandmother's ability to find joy in a cruel world and a spiritual she sang. As for himself, he writes, "wildness is at the center of my joy." He shares revelations born of deep immersions in the wild, describing birds with particular avidity. In the incandescent title poem, a veritable anthem, the poet reflects on Black lives and contrasts human constructs with nature's freedom and glory. For Lanham the sacred is earthly--"Joy is the paradise / we can claim / right here, / right now."--even as he offers this chilling definition: "Joy is the morning jog / without being hunted down." Lanham decries class and racial divides in the birding world, evokes a spectrum of beauty in a salt marsh, at sunrise and sunset, and on his own South Carolina property where a robin is "run-stopping." He also dispenses advice, as in "Fifteen Rules for Better Being." Lanham is warmly contemplative, righteous, incensed, funny, and grateful. His poetics, knowledge, and dissent run deep; his poems are winged.

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