Let the other poets prattle on about awesome volcanoes, splendid beaches and dazzling sunsets. In the poetry collection "A Field Guide to the Wildlife of Suburban O'ahu," Joseph Stanton casts an appreciative spotlight on some overlooked pieces of our paradise.

"I like to enjoy the sublime aspects of Hawai'i as much as the next person, but that's already been written about," says Stanton. "I'd rather pay attention to the egret that's by the pavement of the freeway, or standing in muck and morass."

As in the book's other poems, "Cowbirds Beside the Freeway" proves there is grace in seemingly mundane things. For instance, there is more than muck in the egret's misunderstood life. The poem finishes with a breathtaking account of the bird's ascent at dawn and dusk, "... flapping white on white,/ against a Hiroshige sea and sky/ flying up and up/ wheeling in the high winds,/ like a thousand cranes."

Along with other darlings, egrets share a whole section of "A Field Guide" with termites, geckos and centipedes. In each instance, Stanton stirs in human reaction with habitat, making us all a part of the wildlife in the book's title.

"I quite intentionally put in the word suburban, and some friends of mine didn't like it because they felt it implies mediocrity and shopping malls," he said. "But most of us on O'ahu do live in suburbia, and it seems to me that if you want to be true to the nature of the place you live, you should convey its everyday reality, rather than just the grandiose, romantic scenery."

"A Field Guide" does not completely eschew pretty things, but Stanton uses them as pieces of a larger truth. In a more somber tone, "Lanikai Burial at Sea" captures the scattering of a man's ashes at dawn:

"... Precision stroke on stroke carries them out/ to where the glitter of breaking light/ can dance with flakes of his shadow,/ trailing in the gentle tug of the careful canoe ..."

Stanton's previous collection, "Cardinal Points," operated in a similar vein, finding universal beauty in baseball. "Imaginary Museum, Poems on Art" contemplated movies, architecture, galleries and stories. However, "A Field Guide" is his first book of poems about Hawai'i.

The cover art, which portrays the University of Hawaii-Manoa art building at night, is a detail from a work by local artist Ka-Ning Fong.