absolute animal

**Poems that traverse and question the lines between human and animal behavior.** Experimenting with time, language, and transgressing boundaries, the poems in __absolute animal__ lean into Nabokov’s notion that precision belongs to poetry and intuition to science. Rachel DeWoskin’s new collection navigates the chaos of societal and mortal uncertainty. Through formal poetry, DeWoskin finds sense amid disorder and unearths connections between the animal and the human, between the ancient and the contemporary, and between languages, incorporating translations from poems dating as far back as the Tang dynasty. From sonnet sequences about heart surgeries to examinations of vole romance and climate change, __absolute animal__ investigates and moves across boundaries and invites us to consider what holds life, what lasts, what dies, and what defines and enriches the experience of being human. Contents anthrosphere attention the animal question sestina for the snake in a man-made lake ways to love and leave you social hour vole when we say they hunt unseasonable chemical peel taxidermy heathkit tv 1980 my dad’s socially distant heart surgery his meds arrhythmia feel it if these days i keep falling back estrangement poem on returning (by he zhizhang) on the eve of government exams to secretary zhang (by zhu qingyu) climbing white stork tower (by wang zhihuan) halfway (by li bai) drinking alone under the moon (by li bai) snapshots of what’s called for some girls dressing let me be vanity a surgeon sawed me open, sewed me up double body, hot lasagna taunting the turkey vultures with love tiny staples fear chance, chicago sunset/sonnet airplane landscape, 1992, true story landing dream view from above your death tenacity acknowledgments