Birds in Poetry and Prose in Alaska and Beyond

At the bottom of the earth, aboard an expedition ship crossing the rocky waters of the Drake Passage between Argentina and Antarctica, ornithologist Rodrigo Tapia might be giving a lecture on seabirds that begins with the poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” It’s the haunting story of a sailor who kills an albatross and is forced to endure supernatural punishment at sea, ultimately learning a hard lesson about humanity’s responsibility to the world.

“It’s a very good allegory of the relationship between man and the environment,” Tapia says, pointing to the moment when the albatross is senselessly executed—“this blessing of nature ends”—and everything changes. “That’s the spirit of that poem, really,” Tapia says. “The relationship between man and nature and how … in the end, the guy realizes his mistake.”

For Tapia, poetry helps bridge emotional understanding and scientific knowledge during his lectures. “That's the beauty of literature,” he says. “That's why I like to use it as an opening, because it immediately underlines the relationship between us and [birds].” (Side note: Tapia first discovered the poem in school after hearing the Iron Maiden song with the same name.)

On the other side of the globe, in Alaska, where birds are also abundant and vulnerable to rapid environmental change, that layered understanding is especially important, and Alaska writers are here to drive that point home. Alaska’s prose and poetry are powerful tools for deepening understanding of birds—not only as ecological indicators but also as family, teachers, and storytellers themselves. Across forms and traditions, writing about birds in Alaska is a cherished pastime—and very much a current thing.

Writing About Birds as Relatives

Countless Alaskan poets and authors focus on birds as subjects. But there’s more to this relationship. For Vera Starbard, Alaska’s State Writer Laureate (who’s also a journalist, playwright, and TV writer who’s been nominated for her work on “Molly of Denali”), birds are inseparable from personhood. In her work, shaped by Tlingit storytelling traditions, birds are not just metaphors; they are kin.

“They’re our relatives, they’re our cousins, they’re our creators in some cases, and that’s probably why we like writing about them so much,” Starbard says. “They're such a huge part of our identity, in a way that I don't think is reflected in many other places. I think birds are treated as animals who have no relation to us, and we just have such a deep connection with them that they show up in everything we do.” (Another side note: Starbard is saying this while two decorative birds are literally right behind her head in her home on Douglas Island in Juneau.)

This perspective frames how birds appear in Starbard’s writing, seeing as ravens, eagles, and other species carry lineage. 

“Raven is my moiety as a Tlingit woman, and all Tlingit follow their mother’s clan to be either Raven or Eagle. It is part of my identity as Leeneidi to be Raven, as well as T’akdeintaan yadi—the daughter of the Seagull (or Kittiwake) clan, meaning my father’s clan,” she says. “I couldn’t separate those identities from myself even if I wanted to, so birds have always been a part of my upbringing, as well as a cultural cornerstone of the Tlingit people.”

Calling Out More Alaska Voices

Starbard is part of a broader community of Alaska Native writers whose work deeply engages with the land and birds. She’s quick to mention poets like X̱’unei Lance Twitchell, Annie Wenstrup, and Joan Naviyuk Kane. 

“All three poets write their birds as ‘characters,’” Starbard says, but Twitchell—a Tlingit/Haida/Yup’ik/Sami scholar and writer—publishes works highlighting the legends and personhood behind these birds. “Raven/Trickster is as human as any human, sometimes more so,” Starbard says. “I’ve learned a lot about our culture, including birds, from him.” The piece “The Many Cycles of Raven” from “G̱agaan X̱ʼusyee / Below the Foot of the Sun” comes recommended.

Wenstrup’s writing explores personal history and nature, referencing birds in pieces about legend and as a strong relation to her identity, Starbard explains. Wenstrup is a Dena’ina poet whose debut collection, “The Museum of Unnatural Histories,” was released in 2025. A recommended piece is “Ggugguyni in the Museum Parking Lot” about Ggugguyni (the Dena'ina Raven) and The Museum Curator (the narrator) collecting discarded French fries … and secrets.

Kane’s poetry is deeply rooted in Arctic landscapes and Inupiaq heritage, as she has family ties to Ugiuvak and Qawiaraq. Her work frequently reflects on birds, often as symbols, sometimes accompanied by legend. Starbard suggests her collection, The Cormorant Hunter’s Wife, for fans of Alaska poetry with heavy bird nods (for obvious reasons).

Across these writers, birds are not just scenery; they are personalities and are often central to how a story unfolds. Sounds like we all have some reading to do!

Bird (and Nature) Observation Turned Poetry

Outside of Fairbanks, Frank Keim approaches writing about birds through observation that he shapes into narratives. A longtime adventurer, anthropologist, educator (as a secondary school teacher in four Alaska Native villages in the lower Yukon Delta), and poet (he’s the author of “Voices on the Wind,” an entire poetry book about Alaska birds), Keim’s writing blends science with experiences and poetic form. Over several decades, Keim says he organized about 40 long-distance hiking and canoeing trips in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Gates of Arctic National Park, and wrote about the wildlife—including birds—he encountered in those landscapes.

“Birds, since they sang and flew and mated and nested among all of the wildflowers and grizzly bears and caribou of those wild areas and were part of everything we did, every minute of every precious day of our presence up there, became the most memorable part of camping and trekking everywhere there,” he says.

Keim sees poetry as a vital connection between science and the inspiration to protect. While data and policy are essential, he argues that storytelling creates the emotional connection necessary for stewardship. The “emotional quality of story poems” allows readers to engage more deeply with issues like habitat loss and shifting bird populations, making complex environmental realities more accessible and personal. 

“For those who may read my poems, my hope is that they will at least have a deeper emotional connection with what I have written about,” he says. “In that way, perhaps they will be motivated to learn more about nature and the many ways they could actively try to protect what’s left, including the wild animals and wild places of both Alaska and the Earth in general. This is what I would call true wilderness stewardship.”

But Keim has even more actionable advice: “Camp, trek, canoe, cross-country ski, and raft in wild country and volunteer to participate in nature research studies and student programs that emphasize the intimate relationships that people have, and could have, with wild nature,” he says.

One last thing. Keim’s work, including “Voices on the Wind,” is driven by a belief that birds are expressive beings with their own forms of communication. He says ornithologists, ethologists, and naturalists—from classical Greek Theophrastus to modern-day Frans de Waal—have emphasized that birds and other non-human animals have their own unique sentience, intelligence, and consciousness, including 11,000 different ways of expressing themselves through behaviors like their calls and songs. 

“Bird species evolution is much more ancient than our own, dating from as far back as the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods in Earth’s paleo history,” he says. “So why should we not expect them to be more fully evolved in their own behavior domains than we humans are?” 

With that in mind, perhaps it’s not too crazy to think that birds are creating poetry about us, too.

Beyond the Alaska Postcard

We’re going back to Starbard, who says that the Indigenous people of Alaska have been capturing its beauty, but also the responsibility of living here, for millennia now. In this way, poetry and prose become tools not just for appreciation, but for responsibility.

“The cultural stories and the art capturing the stories, heavily featuring birds by the way, teach how we live with this beauty, and its often frightening changeability, in a way that emphasizes our lived place and duties amongst all the creatures of our land, not any perceived power over them, and not just as picturesque postcards to look at.”

For many outside Alaska, birds are part of the state’s visual allure: You got eagles soaring over mountains, puffins perched on cliffs, cranes crossing open skies. But Alaska writers consistently push beyond that surface.

“I don’t think we need to sell Alaska as a beautiful place to visit; people know that already,” Starbard says. Instead, her work—and the work of many Alaska writers mentioned in this story and beyond—focuses on deepening understanding, creating relationships, and being good stewards, which can often be complex.

Starbard says she has a complicated relationship with the word “conservation,” because it too often means “removed from the land.” “I think that's the opposite of what we need to be able to save our land and save our environments,” she says. “We need to connect with them. We need to see the importance. We need to hold it in our hands to be able to value it. And if we're removed from it, we're only ever going to see it as this Mona Lisa behind the glass.”

Her new book addresses this concept. “Park Survival: Lost In Alaska” follows Emmett, a 12-year-old Tlingit boy who has never been to Alaska, but is about to spend the summer in Sít' Eeti Geiyí, or Glacier Bay National Park—the homeland of his mother’s people. Spoiler alert, but Emmett has a bad interaction with an ornithologist, who may not have the most respect for people “in nature.” However, Emmett learns to look at this person in a different way over their mutual respect for the birds and creatures of Alaska.

This middle-grade novel is another example of how Alaskan authors can underscore the miracle of Alaska’s birds and landscapes while inspiring a desire to protect them.

“Writing, whether it's poetry or a TV show, and showing the beauty and ugliness and extraordinary miracle of what we call the natural world—but we're part of it; it's just the world— that's how we bring about empathy for our causes.”