Aviaries, by Yvonne C. Murphy, is a first collection of poetry determined to integrate the intellect with lyric intensity. Whether alighting on the public or the private—city streets, parks, apartments, nests, crowds, carnival rides, famous inventors and thinkers, family—these poems do not segregate emotion from thought, logic from intuition, abstractions from concretion. Birds are the central motif and while they often remain themselves, they also evoke the arts and transcendence (flight). The birds are hardy and fragile, persistent yet flighty. They are seekers that embody how humans yearn, pursue, and in spite of splendor along the way, never quite arrive.