Mining the Bright Birds

“‘Lean into the love between the lines.’ Poet Jody Collins writes with psalmic sensibilities, often underscored by longing. In attending to people, creatures, and seasons, she attunes the ear and heart to everyday moments of resonance. Her grateful hymn to living bids me join the chorus: ‘. . . all gift. / All God.’”


—Laurie Klein, poet/songwriter of “I Love You, Lord”





“‘Like holiness / with wings,’ Jody Collins’s new collection, Mining the Bright Birds, sings a life of prayer, writing, gardening, family, and birds of every hue. Wise, poetic meditations assure us that we too are made for hope, ‘for here and hear.’ Collins encourages us to wait patiently and ‘rest on beauty.’ In this way, like the poet, may we continue ‘past empty, quiet gray / searching for a hummingbird / in the snow,’ rediscovering home in the Creator.”


—Marjorie Maddox, author of Begin with a Question





“Jody Collins’s breathtaking poetry invites us into small spaces, in time, in creation, and within our own hearts where God’s glory waits ready to burst into song.”


—Shemaiah Gonzalez, storyteller and essayist





“The collection begins with an epigraph from St. Teresa of Avila: ‘God is calling,’ and Jody Collins answers with poems filled with ‘beauty-aleaf and aberry.’ Her poems are the way she is ‘reading the world.’ She listens to birds, she listens to her heart, she writes poetry, and she learns to ‘lean / into the love between the lines.’ Collins finds her way to God, daily glimmer by daily glimmer, bird song by bird song.”


—Megan Willome, author of The Joy of Poetry