Feathers: (Or, Love on the Wing)

Feathers is a collection of poems by Elisavietta Ritchie, inspired by birds and certain humans, paired with collages of photographs of feathers and the watercolors of artist Megan Richard. Designer Suzanne Shelden has created a blending between the artist and the poet, including feathers collected by the artists, to create a depth of connection between the two and to create a book where there are no hard lines between the poems and the art. The result is a deep, visual exploration that complements the richness of the poetry in this book.

Poet, writer, editor, and leader of workshops for adults and children, Ritchie attended the Sorbonne, Cornell University, and received a B.A. from University of California, Berkeley and an M.A. from American University in Washington, D.C. She served as president for poetry, then for fiction, for the Washington Writers Publishing House, where she continues as a fiction editor.

Composers Jackson Berkey, David Owens, David L. Brunner, and others, have transformed her poems for voice and piano. Artist-historian Donald Shomette superimposed her poems on a portfolio of his photographs.