Strange Bird Reviews - [Issue #1]

September Edition: Nature and Whitman

Sep 03, 2025

Introduction to September:

It is the first week of the month. For most of this summer, I have been asking friends, family, colleagues, "why has it been so mild?" Hope it is mild where you are, reading this. And I hope it gets a little colder soon.

Welcome to the first week of September and to the first official issue of SBR or Strange Bird Reviews (Strange, Bird Reviews). This is my digital publication. My preferred way to share my works as opposed to the weekly one poem (or sometimes two) a week. In this issue, I will share essays, prompts, and most importantly poetry: both new and classic from my Substack history. This month, the theme is autumn, nature, traffic.

I would like specifically to share four poems from the ‘Apology to nature’ series that I have been working on since 2022. Three long years, 90% of that time working on the first. I've never spent that long working on a poem or any piece of art, generally. Technically, I finished the second one before the first one. They represent times when I was sitting or walking or exploring nature and I felt kind of bad with how humans overlooked these.

These poems are all directed at you, but who is you? In poetry courses, this is something that most people, including myself, struggled with. Who is the you that this is being directed towards? Take for example, my new, previously unshared IV, it is technically directed at a sky as an individual in comparison with another sky and I build the scene around that idea. I will be sharing them in reverse order, as it is how I think it is best read.

Please let me know what you think!

Thanks for reading Strange Bird Reviews! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Poetry:

Ethan H.
An apology to nature IV–

I learn to photograph
your imperfections,
night sky stretched
over northern Arizona.

On my way down to
Sedona. Your unsteady
constellations and
your blur. Took a while,

the strip of atmosphere
I have at home
shows fireworks, neon
signs on top of sky-

scrapers. I found beauty
in them, and I
apologize for the fear
I found in you. For

accusing you of harboring
UFOs (though I still
believe) and for not
taking the time

to properly fit you
in my lens. It is patience,
the virtue to hold
the camera to let it adjust,

and like the camera,
I promise to adjust. And to
treat my slice well.
To not be in awe of bright

explosions that celebrate
our broken civilization
and spread along
its natural canvas.

*Debut publishing, SBR Issue #1

*Photo of the night sky by me in Sedona, Arizona October 11, 2023

*Photo by me in Sedona, Arizona October 11, 2023

Ethan H.
An apology to nature III–

I walk across your small bridge,
over the duck pond named your home.

I take a second say some words
meant for you— ducks and geese—
from me.

Some of you cross the street,
heading my way. Not to listen,
I know you wonder if I
have food, so I point to the sign:

‘DO NOT FEED WATERFOWL!
THEY MAY BECOME MALNOURISHED!’

We hurt you, but were only
trying to help, for that, waterfowl,
I am truly sorry.

The park dates back to 1892,
but these hotels, margarita and
chip bars are new. While the shops
are all closing due to the internet,
the truck and traffic are growing.

Do you know, ducks and geese,
that it is us behind those
steering wheels? For that, waterfowl,
I am remorseful.

We too have signs: CAUTION,
SHOPPERS CROSSING! And we too
are like orange cones for these cars.

Shoppers, an unnatural animal, how
could I explain that concept to you?
Even with six community
college credits in business, I struggle.

Maybe like the tree y’all rest under,
the leaves like goods,
branches like employees,
trunk like the various companies
that sell them all.

That is how I make sense
of this dense Metroplex. But I
am glad you at least still
have a space near the Trinity
where you can bob as if
you were apples, uninterested in my
breadless hands.

I promise, waterfowl, that I
will keep your water clear, and
to never bother you, as I
assume that’s the only apology
a duck can understand.

*Originally published on Substack May 14, 2025

Writing prompt:

As you know if you’ve gotten this far, this issue is about the environment. But is it really? Or is it really about who we are talking to when we write? The audience and/or the subject, if you will. Every poem in the Apology to Nature series is written to a “you.” Sometimes that “you” is a lake, sometimes a bird, sometimes the sky. The bigger question is who is your you?

For this prompt, try writing a poem where you speak directly to something. It could be nature, but it does not have to be. Maybe it is a building, a memory, a streetlight, an algorithm, or even yourself in the mirror. The important thing is to keep it in the second person and see where that takes you.

Leave a comment with your version. I would love to see who your you is.

More Poetry:

Ethan H.
An apology to nature II–

Are you an unnatural beauty?
We ask several feet below
the buildings your body lines.

Our bones, from the overflowing graves
after the plague, are propped up
with proper stature and line your insides.

I suppose it is best our bones
were used this way, to create
art of hearts and pillars,
as they make the air crisp.

Or is that you, Lutetian,
but your limestone is as natural
as the huasaí in the amazon.
Wood, stone, bones, all pieces
of the city of lights above us.

Do you feel all that weight, Lutetian?
Do you hear the footsteps of tourists
who come to marvel at our ancestors
arranged in macabre displays?

They photograph the death, unable
to touch it. I would press
my palm against your cool surface
if I could, but beauty
is seen, not felt.

I wish I could feel
the centuries condensed in your minerals.
Forgive us for making spectacle
of what was sacred, for transforming
your depths into attractions.

Underneath it all, these gates of hell,
this empire of Death,
do not let us forget.

*Originally published on Substack April 14, 2025

*Photo of the sign for the Catacombs by me in Paris, France October 14, 2022

*Photo by me in Paris, France October 14, 2022

Walt Whitman and our dependence on traffic—

When studying American poets, Whitman will always be one of the first. His poetry is expansive, much like the country at the time in which he was writing. It was recordkeeping, historic, idealistic.

Now, down in North Texas, the cities of the Metroplex keep expanding. Soon, Austin will feel like a suburb of Dallas, or vice versa. It is a strange experience, expansion like this, while so many suffer economically. And the planet suffers too. That makes it hard to write like an idealist like Whitman.

He was proud of the beauty of America. In the now, there is something to that. When someone says the US sucks, my knee-jerk defense is that it is still very beautiful in some places. Think of the natural parks, or my specific friend circle. But is that enough anymore?

Most days I sit in traffic for hours while they add two more lanes to the freeway. Sometimes I listen to NPR, sometimes to an audiobook, and sometimes I sit in silence writing poems in my head. I have become a record keeper of these congested streets. The more lanes they add, the longer I wait, and the more my records turn into traffic-themed rants. My observational hobby has clearly been hijacked.

In his long poem Song of Myself, Whitman writes about many things, one of which is trains. He loved the whistle, the sound of their stopping and moving again. I wonder if he thought America would end up this way. Car dependent, with hardly any serious trains left. His love for that sound feels naïve now, but maybe all poetry risks that.

The final poem in this issue is one I started in 2022, a few months before my wedding, while traveling for a friend’s wedding and bachelor party. At the time, I was also reading a lot of Whitman. Working my way through his songs. It is clear that I take inspiration from him, but I also think I am writing to him, in conversation with his America, with his vision of beauty and expansion that maybe never existed at all.

That is the lesson, or at least the starting point for inspiration: poetry is a record, but it is also a conversation. Whitman recorded trains and I record traffic. He heard a bird singing and I hear a horn honking. He imagined an expansive America, and I write about the limits of one. Both of us are talking to a “you.” The best way to think of this in my humble opinion, is to ask every time you sit down to write: who is you?

As always, for me, I will let the reader decide how true and useful my writing is.

Sources:

Whitman, Walt. “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48858/out-of-the-cradle-endlessly-rocking. Accessed 22 Aug. 2025.

Whitman, Walt. “Song of Myself (1892 Version).” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45477/song-of-myself-1892-version. Accessed 22 Aug. 2025.

Writing is a collective effort, if you want to join this strange poetry publication, feel free to reach out!

Contact: ethanhwrites@strangebirdreviews.com

Final poem:

Ethan H.
An apology to nature–

We sit beside you.
Though you exist in nature,
a hole in the ground.

Rocks thrown beside you,
one even shaped like a couch—
we sit on it when the weather
is hot.

Cool touch bounces off
like a hall of mirrors;
we pose and shake and look up.

She says to me,
“I think I’d rather see Autumn
on Jupiter and Mars, not spring.”

There is no concept
of such things here unless
the air is blasting and
we are locked in our homes.

Oh, lake, you have taken a bite
out of us both, crackling like candy
or fireworks around a speeding train.

I say, “I hope they fix
the barrier someday— I’m tired
of the train’s horn.”

Unfortunately, it is lost
in the man-made construction
of the streets.

An unnatural ugly— even
the most monstrous cryptids
concocted by men ages ago
to scare children into
making their beds tucked tight
as pinched cheeks—
could not conjure something
so sinister as this.

It cuts through the unnatural
beauties of the world,
like the lake that ponds around us,
and gives us all this time
to spend, enjoying our time.

No, it has only gaslit us—
the train going back and forth,
connecting, reconnecting with itself,
tricking us to believe time
travels back and forth, giving us
more time with you, lake.

Horrifying, not understanding
the path it takes, the purpose
it serves— how it’s created
an October fog that lasts all year.

Thanks to this, we’ve developed
a slow cough, and I know
you have too. It has dried you up;
the rock couch no longer
has a footrest, and now
you’re in the other room.

Anxiety grows past
the tallest Texas tree.
“Loblolly pine,” she says,
throwing her arms around
my shoulders, like a live oak.

Sincerely, lake, I apologize
for the time I was young,
came here drunk and high,
brought bottles of orange juice,
plastic water bottles— left without them.

Though I sense you accept that,
for you know it is not
what the average person has done
to you that aches your tired bones;
it is the unnatural ugly.

*Originally published on Substack April 9, 2025

What’s next?

By the time this issue releases, I will be about two weeks into my legal studies journey. Because of that, my poetry schedule will shift. I will now be sharing monthly issues of Strange Bird Reviews on the first Wednesday of each month. Each issue will include 3 to 5 poems, some prompts, and an essay, all with a similar theme and historic poet.

Issue #0 explored strangeness and Wallace Stevens. Issue #1 I have just explored nature and Walt Whitman. The next issue: SBR #2 (October), will focus on love poems, timed with my wife and I’s anniversary and I will do a deep dive on a secret poet; subscribe to find out who!

If you have a favorite poet or writer in general, I will gladly write an essay on them, just let me know.

If I have time, I may also release something on the third Wednesday of the month. I’ve enjoyed recording spoken poetry, and I have a few poems that didn’t make the cut for Issue 1. That could turn into a possible Issue #1.5. I won’t make any promises as the semester progresses, but I’ll still log on to read the great work of others, and I’ll keep liking, sharing, and commenting encouragement.

Finally, I am also beginning a journal for my celiac and autoimmune disease journey. This will not necessarily focus on poetry, but you can find the information below if you’re interested.

Thank you for reading!