Poems about birth, death, and ecosystems of nature and power

Winner of the Colorado Book Award in Poetry (2018)

In this fourth book in a series of award-winning survival narratives, Dungy writes positioned at a fulcrum, bringing a new life into the world even as her elders are passing on. In a time of massive environmental degradation, violence and abuse of power, a world in which we all must survive, these poems resonate within and beyond the scope of the human realms, delicately balancing between conflicting loci of attention. Dwelling between vibrancy and its opposite, Dungy writes in a single poem about a mother, a daughter, Smokin' Joe Frazier, brittle stars, giant boulders, and a dead blue whale. These poems are written in the face of despair to hold an impossible love and a commitment to hope. A readers companion will be availabe at wesleyan.edu/wespress/readerscompanions.

CAMILLE DUNGY is the author of Smith Blue, winner of the 2010 Crab Orchard Open Book Prize, Suck on the Marrow, winner of the American Book Award, What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison, and a collection of personal essays, Trophic Cascade. She is editor of Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry, co editor of From the Fishouse: An anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great, and assistant editor of Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem's First Decade. She is a professor of English at Colorado State University.