The Gift Of Animals by Alison Hawthorne Deming

subtitled Poems of Love, Loss, and Connection. Truly an interesting, holistic take on how humanity’s relationships to animals speak to our own existence as individuals.

Divided into seven parts — Praise; Lament; Companionship; Fear And Vulnerability; The Least Among Us; The Sacred, and The Future Of Animals — each section begins with an ancient text that links the theme with our perception of the animal world, grounding this contemporary examination in traditions of the past. The Hymns To Inana that open the FaV section, as well as The Flight Of Quetzalcoatl that open Lament, are both strong pieces from the distant past that evoke animals in their descriptions of their deities. A more recent, if still written and set in the 18th century, poem provides another throughline, being mentioned well ahead of its inclusion in the Companionship section. Christopher Smart’s celebrated Jubilate Agno is excerpted here, to remind readers how people have long esteemed their animal companions. Pieces by Emily Dickinson and Gerard Manley Hopkins are also included, but by far the bulk of the book is written by poets still practicing in the 21st century.

This makes for a refreshingly unprecious collection of poems. Kelly Grace Thomas’ Koalas slyly pokes fun at our modern-day obsessions even as she links them unerringly to that restless human need to be loved. Michael Collier’s Boars Gleaning Through Cities At Night puts the hidebound past in its place as it embraces a wild and wonderful present. Similarly, Craig Santos Perez’ A Sonnet At The Edge Of The Reef revels in the beauty of the seabed even as it worries about how we’re preparing our own children for an uncertain future.

Speaking of parent-child relationships, Lindsay Stewart’s The Mother successfully walks the tightrope between cold biology and mawkishness — tho if I’m being honest, it was the accompanying illustration that really gave me the willies. Overall, Daniela Gallego’s illustrations are excellent: it’s hardly her fault that I find octopi a little creepy.

But that’s the brilliance of this collection, that it takes such a long view of humanity’s relationships with animals, from finding them holy and comforting and necessary to having them fill us with disgust and fear and negativity. And it isn’t just the past and present that it contemplates. RK Fauth’s Playing With Bees beautifully imagines language in a world where we’ve somehow managed to destroy these very necessary pollinators. Rebecca Morgan Frank’s Not Everybody’s Bestiary (Yet) engages fully with the creative trajectory of technology. And finally Katharine Coles’ If Past Becomes Future closes the book with a gentle warning: we are but one species in the world’s tapestry. Evolution will continue without us, once we tire of destroying others and finish destroying ourselves.

Yet this is not a bleak volume by any means. There are moments of humor and wonder and grace, whether appreciating animals in their natural habitats, as in Ellen Bass’ Grizzly and Robinson Jeffers’ Vulture, or in decidedly more adaptive environments, as in Khadijah Johnson’s The Emmy Goes To The Seagull, Flying Off With The Hot Wing… In Front Of The Chicken Spot?. But it’s hard to contemplate our relationships with the animal world without acknowledging the damage we do, as that latter poem exemplifies. And that’s a good thing. Good poetry should remind us of our strengths and our flaws, and urge us towards being better, if only through genuinely appreciating the world around us. That’s a task The Gift Of Animals carries off with aplomb, and the world is a finer place for it.

The Gift Of Animals by Alison Hawthorne Deming was published April 1 2025 by Storey Publishing and is available from all good booksellers, including