India, Aug. 15 -- What drew you so deeply to birds while writing this collection?

Of all the creatures we share the planet with birds seem to me utterly unknowable. Lion, beetle, bandicoot - somehow, I can imagine my way into them, perhaps because of their terrestrial nature. But with birds, there is this magical quality of flight. Most birds occupy the realm of sky, and this wingedness is a marvel. My obsession with birds has developed from mild curiosity to full-on mania over the past decade, and I've found they've increasingly made their way into my poems.

I'm always frustrated by my inability to retain information about them, and no amount of swotting up on bird guides has allowed me to be able to name and identify more than some 20...