A contemporary adaptation of The Birds by an award-winning poet, published to tie in with a major production at the National Theatre directed by Kathryn Hunter

Pez and Eck are on the hunt for the perfect society in "a city where free men might live like birds". But when they start building the bird city for real, Pez starts to have ambitions - which seem not a million miles away from dictatorship. As the fantasy utopia threatens to turn into a tyranny the birds start to rebel. Sean O'Brien's new verse version brings Aristophanes' devastatingly ironic comment on human ambition bang up-to-date and is brimful of jokes ancient and modern.

This adaptation by the winner of the Forward Prize for Poetry of Aristophanes' classic comedy is published to coincide with the National Theatre production and tour in 2002.