Sowell Emerging Writers Prize Birds at Night

Ibe Liebenberg's first book-length collection of poetry, Birds at Night, explores themes of loss, trauma, PTSD, indigeneity, and familial relationships. These brief, intense poems amplify the sensations and silences of interior moments of crisis and catharsis. A haunting meditation on what keeps us up at night, Liebenberg invites the reader to contend with their own responses to exigent circumstances. Drawing on the resiliency of the natural world in the face of changing climate, birds, wolves, and fire populate the stanzas. Migration and adaptation are the poetic subjects, but they are also the embodied language of each taut line. "In whatever tongue they sing," Birds at Night captures the need for empathy and understanding for the natural world.