A Roof of Birds is Susan Firer’s final poetry manuscript, written in three sections; “Transubstantiation,” “The Rusk Epiphany,” and “Alfred Hitchcock’s Birthday.” The collection contains the combination of humor, personal history, and consideration of place for which Firer is known; but it also sees the poems expanding into exploration and abstraction as the poet contemplates life and mortality. While this introspection might imply isolation, Firer places it firmly in conversation within a larger poetry community. The collection begins with “A Cento of Stone,” a poem wholly composed of text taken from other poems; and ends with “Ghost Poems, a Révérence,” where Firer gives credit to the poems that influenced her work.

Susan Firer (1948–2025) served as Milwaukee’s Poet Laureate from 2008 to 2010 and taught poetry and creative writing at UW-Milwaukee from 1982 to 2015. Her work has been published in the New Yorker, Ms. magazine, The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, The Book of Irish American Poetry: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present, and many more. Her previous books include the Cleveland State University Poetry Center Award-winning The Lives of Saints and Everything; this book, published posthumously, is her seventh. Susan lived the vast majority of her life within hearing distance of Lake Michigan. Her archives are housed at UW-Milwaukee’s Golda Meir Library.

This book was printed and bound in St. Francis, WI. It is hand-sewn with a French link stitch. The cover was printed with a pen plotter on vintage cover stock that was gifted by Woodland Pattern.

US shipping included. Unfortunately we are unable to ship internationally at this time. Please allow up to two weeks for shipping, due to the hand-made labor put into each book.