I Almost Was Animal

"The poems in I Almost Was Animal court mystery without sacrificing clarity, each short lyric encompassing leaps that stretch us but don't let us drop. They hold the capacity for joy and love but also loss, the emotions contained within the tight craft of the lines, stanzas, and lyrical prose poems. Images return-tulip, ocean, wing, girl-and comment on each other, so that we feel that we've been wrapped in a tapestry, almost a narrative. The poet calls on Arnaut Daniel, Walt Whitman, George Herbert, and César Vallejo, poetic ancestors who are very unlike each other, though each is engaged in the exploration of his own wildness, in language chosen for its precision. That balance between wildness and discipline is what constitutes the beauty of this collection, which richly deserves to find a wider audience."-Susanna Lang, author of Travel Notes from the River Styx