This unique collection of poems from diverse contemporary voices offers a range of perspectives on humans’ complex relationship with animals, celebrating and bearing witness to the lives of animals both wild and domestic.
Animals have long been a source of inspiration, sustenance, and companionship, and poems about and for animals are among the oldest traditions across human cultures. This collection of contemporary poems adds to this ancient lineage, celebrating animals for their beauty and intelligence; empathizing over their suffering; and hoping for their future, which is entwined with our own. The presence of an animal is a gift. The loss of an animal is a grief. To share such feelings through poetry is to create a community of caring for the creatures that accompany us on Earth. The Gift of Animals includes poems by some of today’s most beloved poets, including Ellen Bass, Lucille Clifton, Michael Collier, Toi Derricotte, Rita Dove, Camille Dungy, Mark Doty, Nick Flynn, Jorie Graham, Joy Harjo, Terrance Hayes, Arthur Sze, Yusef Komunyakaa, Ada Limón, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Craig Santos Perez, Paisley Rekdal, and more.
Advance praise for The Gift of Animals
The Gift of Animals is a wonderful book, the rare treasure that you will want to give to all your friends, even as you keep a copy close beside you. Brilliantly selected and meaningfully arranged, the poems unfold one after another – perfectly observed, rambunctious, hilarious or heartbreaking, astonishing, revelatory or mysterious, loving. In our cosmic loneliness, the company of animals is a great gift that asks in return only that we notice them, respect them, keep a safe place for them on Earth. The poetry of The Gift of Animals is a beautiful invitation to that moral relationship. — Kathleen Dean Moore, author Earth’s Wild Music
The Gift of Animals offers us a fascinating treasure trove of the most surprising (re)connections to oysters, flamingoes, snakes, and a whole lyrical host of other dazzling heartbeats that beat the same as ours, no matter how many chambers. This collection of fins, fur, scales, and wings echoes a most satisfying call back to our mutual, extraordinary home: Earth. –Aimee Nezhukumatathil