Saturday April 4, 2026
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Free  (advanced registration required)

Washington is home to some of the most captivating birds in the country from the iridescent Anna’s hummingbird that dazzles through the winter to the great blue heron stalking the shores of Lake Washington. Their colors, calls, and curious habits have long inspired both naturalists and artists. But what happens when these birds take flight through poetry?

BirdBrains: A Lyrical Guide to Washington State Birds brings together writers and illustrators who celebrate our feathered neighbors through verse, art, and natural history. Each poem invites readers to see familiar species with fresh wonder—whether capturing the bold charisma of a Steller’s jay or the persistence of a marsh wren threading its nest among the reeds.

Join Seward Park Audubon for a special installment of Science, Nature, and a Biscuit, featuring live readings from BirdBrains by contributing poets. Hear the stories behind the anthology, learn surprising natural history facts woven throughout its pages, and experience the blend of science and creativity that gives this collection its wings.

Settle in, sip something warm, and savor a fresh biscuit as we immerse ourselves in poetry, birds, and community. Books will be available for purchase, and time will be reserved for Q&A and signing with the poets.

Come for the birds. Stay for the biscuits. Leave a little more inspired.

Registration will open Thursday, April 2 @ 2PM

Featured Reader Bios

Rae Armantrout

Describing the poems in Rae Armantrout’s latest book, Go Figure, the Library Journal writes that “she has honed enduring art on the ephemera that constitute a consciousness in motion through the present.” Charles Bernstein calls her “sheer, often hilarious, ingenuity… an aesthetic triumph.” Armantrout’s 2018 book Wobble was a finalist for the National Book Award. In 2010, Versed won both the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her poems have appeared widely in Poetry, Conjunctions, The Nation, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Best American Poetry, and more.

Deborah Bacharach

Deborah Bacharach is the author of two full-length collections, Shake & Tremor (2021) and After I Stop Lying (2015). Her poems, essays, and reviews appear in One Art, New Letters, Poet Lore, The Writer’s Chronicle, and other journals. She has received multiple Pushcart and Orison Prize nominations, including a Pushcart honorable mention, and currently serves as a poetry reader for SWWIM and Whale Road Review. More at DeborahBacharach.com.

Stacy D. Flood

Originally from Buffalo and now living in Seattle, Stacy D. Flood’s work has been performed and published nationwide. He has been a finalist in the Playwrights Foundation Bay Area Festival, the Ashland New Play Festival, and the ACT New Play Northwest Festival. He has held residencies at DISQUIET (Lisbon), Djerassi (California), Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus (Bavaria), and Millay Arts (New York). A Getty Fellow to the Community of Writers, Flood is the author of the novella The Salt Fields, an editor’s choice for Shelf Awareness and the Historical Novel Society.

Anya Kirshbaum

Anya Kirshbaum (she/her) is a bi/queer poet and somatic therapist based in Seattle. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Swamp Pink, Mississippi Review, Whale Road Review, Crannóg, Solstice Literary Magazine, and more. She was a finalist for the Orison Spiritual Literature Prize and the Patricia Dobler Poetry Award, a 2024 Forward Prize nominee, and the recipient of the 2023 Banyan Poetry Prize. Her work recently appeared in Best New Poets 2025.

Mulch Morwell

Mulch Morwell is a Seattle poet, bird photographer, and visual artist. Their work often explores death, queerness, and what it means to be a human navigating a sometimes chaotic world. Mulch rediscovered a love of poetry while working for Youth Speaks Seattle and continues to value it as a powerful expressive form. A lifelong bird enthusiast, Mulch grew up attempting to catch geese—successfully, once, to their great surprise and the goose’s mild disapproval.

Abby E. Murray

Abby E. Murray (they/them) is the editor of Collateral, a literary journal exploring the impacts of military service beyond the combat zone. Their first book, Hail and Farewell: Poems (2019), won the Perugia Press Prize and was a Washington State Book Award finalist. Their second book, Recovery Commands, won the Richard-Gabriel Rummonds Poetry Prize and will be published in 2025. A former Poet Laureate of Tacoma (2019–2021), Abby teaches rhetoric in military strategy for the Army War College fellows at the University of Washington.

Laura Urban Perry

Laura Urban Perry is a poet, artist, and award‑winning graphic designer with a BFA from the University of Washington. She now devotes her time to poetry, painting, and photography. Her work has appeared in Amsterdam Quarterly, the Poets on the Coast Anthologies, and Telephone. Laura lives in Seattle and sometimes in a no-roads island cabin she built with her husband and children.

Susan Rich (Editor)

Susan Rich is the author of six poetry collections and co-editor of two prose anthologies. Her recent books include Blue Atlas (Red Hen Press) and Gallery of Postcards and Maps (Salmon Poetry). She co-edited Demystifying the Manuscript (Two Sylvias Press) and Strangest of Theatres (McSweeney’s). Rich is a recipient of the PEN USA Award and the Times Literary Supplement Award, with support from the Fulbright Foundation and Peace Corps Writers. Her poems appear in New England Review, Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest, and more. She lives in West Seattle.

Dr. Stephanie Delaney (Bird Notes)

Dr. Stephanie Delaney loves all things birds. She is an avid birder studying with Birds Connect Seattle and has logged more than 1,500 bird sightings in eBird. A lifelong learner and higher education administrator, she is especially passionate about urban birding and introducing diverse audiences to the joys of the bird world.