Primate Behavior : Poems

Cover Page; Title Page; Copyright Page; Contents; I; By Luristan to Thule; So Were the Animals; Constantinople, Plague Summer; The Angel That Troubled the Waters; Hidden at the Zoo; Nachtmusik; Voladora; Slumgullion; Superman in Sunglasses; US; Life on Earth, Part Twelve: The Business Salmon; Thor Swimming; Blue Oranges; Aluminum Chlorohydrate; What All It Takes; Tyrannosaurus Sex; Musk Oxen Do Not Run Away; Neanderthal; Lungfish Conquers Depression; Instead of Acceptance; Dinosaur to Dragon; They Live Here; Manatee in Honey; Honeysuckle; Honey; Legend of the Woolly Mammoth;Once in a generation a young poet arrives with such an unexpected and compelling vision that readers take notice right from the start. With Primate Behavior Sarah Lindsay makes just such a debut. Her exuberant, witty, and outrageous poems have already stunned and delighted the readers of some of America's best magazines and journals. Primate Behavior is the product of a wild and exhilarating imagination, ranging wide across an abundant imaginary landscape. Sarah Lindsay writes of space migration and the cave paintings of 35,000 B.C. Her poems speak from the perspective of an embalmed mummy and detail the adventures of nineteenth century explorers. Lindsay investigates the world as no one has yet had the daring and inspiration to do, reanimating history and folk legend and setting in motion curious new worlds that speak eccentrically, but unmistakably, to their own. Primate Behavior is a remarkably sustained and self-assured performance. The Grove Press Poetry Series, which has brought the public both powerful retrospectives and the work of authors in mid-career, now introduces an exciting new poet, Sarah Lindsay. "Sarah Lindsay's molten imagination burns new channels for poetry. No lie."--Kay Ryan; "As a poet, Sarah Lindsay is fearless. Subjects others would find unpromising or intimidating she forms into poems of eerie, spectral beauty. Antarctic exploration, astronomical theory, the lungfish, the manatee, and the rotting orange-even Superman's puberty!-all are transmuted from strange Idea into graceful Song. Primate Behavior is a must read." - Fred Chappell. Cover Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents I By Luristan to Thule So Were the Animals Constantinople, Plague Summer The Angel That Troubled the Waters Hidden at the Zoo Nachtmusik Voladora Slumgullion Superman in Sunglasses US Life on Earth, Part Twelve: The Business Salmon Thor Swimming Blue Oranges Aluminum Chlorohydrate What All It Takes Tyrannosaurus Sex Musk Oxen Do Not Run Away Neanderthal Lungfish Conquers Depression Instead of Acceptance Dinosaur to Dragon They Live Here Manatee in Honey Honeysuckle Honey Legend of the Woolly Mammoth Where Thieves Break In and StealLassie's Left Eye Accidentals Chang and Eng View a Giraffe Really Big Shew Borodin: Symphony in B Minor II: Circus Merk Circus Merk at the End of the Flandrian Interglacial Circus Merk's Queen of Siberia See Circus Merk's Own Amazing Siamese Twins Madame Vashti Sees the Future Circus Merk and the Spectacular Conflagration The Acts of the Elephants The Hartunians Form the Tower in the Dark Tornado Watch Elephant Waltz Professor Enjō's Astounding Continuum Ray Circus Merk, 25,000 B.C. Toby the Sapient Pig The End of Circus Merk's Elephant Baseball ActDido Summons the Beetles III Capt. Robert Falcon Scott Returns to London Warming: Aletsch Glacier Whether or Not a Giraffe Lies Down to Sleep Courthope on Pulau Run, 1620 Of What Earth Has Eaten, Something May Yet Be Found Near Combe d'Arc A Lizard, a Stone Slides from Patagonia, 1896-99 Arsinoitherium Solipsist in Love Venus of Judith River Positive White Fossil Finds His Hot Breath on Her Cheek El Abuelo The Wreck of the General Grant Primate Behavior Vegetables in Space First Song for the Ba of Ptah-hotep Buprestidae, CantharidaeAlfred Russel Wallace in Venezuela Cheese Penguin A National Book Award Finalist—a bestiary in verse from the acclaimed poet whose “molten imagination burns new channels for poetry” (Kay Ryan, author of Erratic Facts ). Once in a generation a poet arrives with such an unexpected and compelling vision that readers take notice right from the start. With Primate Behavior , Sarah Lindsay made just such a debut with her exuberant, witty, and outrageous poems. Primate Behavior is the product of a wild imagination ranging wide across an abundant imaginary landscape. Sarah Lindsay writes of space migration and the cave paintings of 35,000 B.C; she speaks from the perspective of an embalmed mummy and details the adventures of nineteenth century explorers. In this “must read” volume full of “eerie, spectral beauty,” Lindsay investigates the world as no one else could, reanimating history and folk legend and setting in motion curious new worlds that speak eccentrically, but unmistakably, to our own (Fred Chappell, author of As if it Were ). "Primate Behavior is the product of a wild and exhilarating imagination, ranging wide across an abundant imaginary landscape. Sarah Lindsay writes of space migration and the cave paintings of 35,000 B.C. Her poems speak from the perspective of an embalmed mummy and detail the adventures and misadventures of nineteenth-century explorers. Lindsay investigates the world as no one has yet had the daring and inspiration to do, reanimating history and folk legend and setting in motion curious new worlds that speak eccentrically, but unmistakably to our own."--Page 4 of cover