A Colorado-based ecopoet, Thomas McGuire writes frequently about magpies. Eradication schemes, pollution, shrinking habitat, and West Nile disease threaten not only magpies, but many other bird species. The war on magpies thus constitutes a smaller, yet significant part of a larger story of plummeting North American avian populations. Voiced from Magpie’s perspective, “Ubi Sunt” laments the devastation. Magpie endures in a world rife with murder and “chemical clouds” perhaps because of his capacity for song.

His“Four Ways of Looking at Magpie--A Most Becoming Bird” appeared in Best New Poets 2020. His work has appeared in North American Review, Poetics for the More-Than-Human-World; Southeast Review, Dispatches from the Poetry Wars, and Open-Eyed, Full-Throated. He is Poetry Editor for War, Literature & the Arts.