The Birds Were the Only Ones Singing - Matt Dolezal

The Birds Were the Only Ones Singing is a diverse anthology of poems that reflects the world around us.Split into six chapters, the poems are drawn from the poet’s personal experiences and explores nature, community, folk, love, loss, and metamorphosis.Dolezal details his own personal sense of escapism into nature and where he finds solace. The poems ask readers to question where they feel most at peace. The chapter reveals how elements in nature can be a metaphor for human greed and deception.Themes of community and how governments and regimes can divide a community are explored in the chapter Community. The final chapter titled Metamorphosis is the surreal exploration from the world we live in and becoming emersed into the forest.All the poems explore different themes, but some echo each other. Some are fun and are written with humour, while others are more serious. The Birds Were the Only Ones Singing is a poignant poetry collection and details how humans experience, love and loss and how we face our own mortality.