num_pages: 83
description: If poems are "levers of transcendence," as Edward Hirsch argues, then "In All Their Animal Brilliance" offers a collection of pry bars, each designed to jar the reader loose from the mundane. Occasion is everywhere, whether it's a bloody thumb print in a library book, a tarantula climbing one's arm, a young father thawing his wife's milk in the microwave, or a boy who sits down on a platter in an Amherst backyard and waits for Emily Dickinson to winch him into higher whiteness. In their attempt to lift us out of our expectations, these meditations--by turns tender, whimsical, or darkly comic--reveal the subterranean logic of our lives. And in the process, these poems take us places, on foot, by car, and through woods, feeding the animal hunger that lights our way.
language: English
title: In All Their Animal Brilliance: Poems
titlecomplete: In All Their Animal Brilliance: Poems
genres: Poetry
ratings_count: 28
awards: awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Utah Book Award
category: Poetry
publisher: University of Tampa Press