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Kind: Poems
If it is true that one knows oneself best by observing how one treats others then this book of poems by Gretchen Primack is essential reading. Read these poems for the truth they tell about our relationship to and treatment of the creatures we take to be our property; read this book and ponder its many questions, for example 'Who are the beasts?' and 'What can I do?'
—Kazim Ali
How often does one get starstruck by a poet? When I read Gretchen Primack's animal poems, I was starstruck instantly. How could someone crystallize my own feelings about animals and humanity so beautifully, so powerfully, and so poignantly? Primack seems only capable of writing poetry so damn good that you will find yourself wanting to read it aloud to everyone you know who shares your compassion for animals...and to everyone you know who doesn't.
—Marisa Miller Wolfson
Gretchen Primack knows that animals 'cannot forget hell for even a day, and so [she] cannot either.' She is infused with an abnormal amount of empathy, which fills her heart with kindness, awe, and hope. She wants to live 'somewhere else, somewhere kind,' so she spends her time shifting into that place where every being matters, and she takes us with her.
—Sharon Gannon
—Kazim Ali
How often does one get starstruck by a poet? When I read Gretchen Primack's animal poems, I was starstruck instantly. How could someone crystallize my own feelings about animals and humanity so beautifully, so powerfully, and so poignantly? Primack seems only capable of writing poetry so damn good that you will find yourself wanting to read it aloud to everyone you know who shares your compassion for animals...and to everyone you know who doesn't.
—Marisa Miller Wolfson
Gretchen Primack knows that animals 'cannot forget hell for even a day, and so [she] cannot either.' She is infused with an abnormal amount of empathy, which fills her heart with kindness, awe, and hope. She wants to live 'somewhere else, somewhere kind,' so she spends her time shifting into that place where every being matters, and she takes us with her.
—Sharon Gannon
71 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
3 people are currently reading
75 people want to read
About the author
Gretchen Primack
8 books21 followersGretchen Primack is the author, most recently, of KIND, a collection of poems about animals and our relationship to them (Post Traumatic Press 2013). She's also the co-author of "The Lucky Ones: My Passionate Fight for Farmed Animals" with Jenny Brown (Penguin Avery 2012).
Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, The Massachusetts Review, Ploughshares, The Antioch Review, Poet Lore, and many other journals. KIND is most readily available through her website (she's not an Amazon fan) at www.gretchenprimack.com/books.
Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, The Massachusetts Review, Ploughshares, The Antioch Review, Poet Lore, and many other journals. KIND is most readily available through her website (she's not an Amazon fan) at www.gretchenprimack.com/books.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
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May 18, 2013HI FOLKS! Thanks so much for visiting KIND here. FYI, except for some indie bookstores in the mid-Hudson Valley where I live, the book is only available on my website:
gretchenprimack.com/books
and the publisher's website:
www. posttraumaticpress.org.
That's because I'm not a fan o' the big, fat online retailers--though if someone from Powell's or Better World Books wants to give me a shout, I'd LOVE to be accessible through those sites, too!
And you can reach me through my website as well....
gretchenprimack.com/books
and the publisher's website:
www. posttraumaticpress.org.
That's because I'm not a fan o' the big, fat online retailers--though if someone from Powell's or Better World Books wants to give me a shout, I'd LOVE to be accessible through those sites, too!
And you can reach me through my website as well....
May 12, 2013
My mothers day wish is that everyone could hear Gretchen Primack read her poems about animal mothers, like I did last night. The next best thing is to read them on your own. Gretchen's new book is amazing and you'll be better for having read it.
September 21, 2014
A book of poetry for people who didn't think they liked poetry. Truly, the voices of animals come to life in this book. I've read it over and over.
July 18, 2013
Disclaimer: I know the author and consider her a friend. But I had not read a collection of her poems before, and I was struck by how true to her voice her writing is. What is her voice? It is tough and not afraid to be skeptical and occasionally quietly furious. It is also open to the stirrings of the heart and the diamond wisdom that cuts through the murky gravel of the everyday to the granite passion underneath. Primack is gimlet-eyed and precise in her enumeration of injustices and cruelties. But she loves kindness and the generosity offered and acts demanded when we acknowledge kinship. She's also funny, charming, and quietly subversive. A thoroughly well-put-together volume, with lovely illustrations.
April 25, 2016
What a beautiful book and tribute to the animals. Gretchen has such a talent for using her words to place you with each character in the poem and experiencing their happiness as well as their deep suffering. I highly recommend this amazing book of poetry.
June 14, 2013
Certain things are ineffable. There are moments when we cannot dig deep enough into our storehouse of words and grasp the proper one. We cannot attach enough inflection. We are unable to swaddle our message in sufficient emotion. Our attempts at expression clatter out of our mouths like Mason jars down a basement stairway.
And then there is Gretchen Primack.
In her present poetry collection, Kind, she tackles not only the things that are difficult for humans to express, but also those things that our fellow beings cannot express: the two-way horror of a killing floor; the nightmare of workers in a slaughter factory; the despair of a mother whose young are repeatedly taken from her: her children’s fate and hers are one and the same: to feed the appetites of another species, systematically, facelessly, in tangible daily scenarios that confound comprehension. Is this cruelty truly reality?
But she sees not only cruelty. As the title suggests, she sees quick visions of kindness. Her husband, working against fate and expected outcomes, tries to save two orphaned fledglings. He is unsuccessful, of course, as we all would be. But he succeeds in portraying the valiant kindness that we all must have, fighting against all expectations and naysayers and critics, pursuing that which we genetically know is right. Isn’t it what every sane, compassionate, kind individual should do?
We should all be thus, not letting anticipated outcomes limit our actions. We should be passionately, obstinately, vehemently kind, in matters simple and complex.
But her kindness doesn’t end with her engaging spin on a common homestead tale. She extends it to her canine companion, who, being a dog, must be a dog. Upon encountering the lifeless body of a fallen fawn, Gretchen allows her friend to follow her nature; Gretchen herself will continue up the trail alone. It is a visceral and beautiful moment when most of us would waver. But her kindness is vast, varied, and wise.
Scribing the continuous chain from holocaust to circus to sable to egg to human privilege, her insistence is also vast. These images, these actions, these feelings, this consciousness—they are all the same. Read her entry entitled “Chain;” then read Rilke’s “The Panther;” then read Neruda’s “Ode to the Black Panther.” How many voices are in this chorus? And why do we still hear disharmonious tones?
Graceful being that she is, Gretchen also shares bits of joy with us: her garden, wild berries, heroic roosters, the fleeting—if tainted—happiness found in a picnic. Weighing the percentages of joy’s presence, we have much work to do. Her deftly demanding poems show us that too much shared and sacred life is left in the balance. With a poet’s grace she takes leave, encouraging us to cipher the equations and calculate our responses.
And then there is Gretchen Primack.
In her present poetry collection, Kind, she tackles not only the things that are difficult for humans to express, but also those things that our fellow beings cannot express: the two-way horror of a killing floor; the nightmare of workers in a slaughter factory; the despair of a mother whose young are repeatedly taken from her: her children’s fate and hers are one and the same: to feed the appetites of another species, systematically, facelessly, in tangible daily scenarios that confound comprehension. Is this cruelty truly reality?
But she sees not only cruelty. As the title suggests, she sees quick visions of kindness. Her husband, working against fate and expected outcomes, tries to save two orphaned fledglings. He is unsuccessful, of course, as we all would be. But he succeeds in portraying the valiant kindness that we all must have, fighting against all expectations and naysayers and critics, pursuing that which we genetically know is right. Isn’t it what every sane, compassionate, kind individual should do?
We should all be thus, not letting anticipated outcomes limit our actions. We should be passionately, obstinately, vehemently kind, in matters simple and complex.
But her kindness doesn’t end with her engaging spin on a common homestead tale. She extends it to her canine companion, who, being a dog, must be a dog. Upon encountering the lifeless body of a fallen fawn, Gretchen allows her friend to follow her nature; Gretchen herself will continue up the trail alone. It is a visceral and beautiful moment when most of us would waver. But her kindness is vast, varied, and wise.
Scribing the continuous chain from holocaust to circus to sable to egg to human privilege, her insistence is also vast. These images, these actions, these feelings, this consciousness—they are all the same. Read her entry entitled “Chain;” then read Rilke’s “The Panther;” then read Neruda’s “Ode to the Black Panther.” How many voices are in this chorus? And why do we still hear disharmonious tones?
Graceful being that she is, Gretchen also shares bits of joy with us: her garden, wild berries, heroic roosters, the fleeting—if tainted—happiness found in a picnic. Weighing the percentages of joy’s presence, we have much work to do. Her deftly demanding poems show us that too much shared and sacred life is left in the balance. With a poet’s grace she takes leave, encouraging us to cipher the equations and calculate our responses.
March 5, 2021
Oh my heart. I feel what the poet feels. I’m still processing what I’ve read but I can tell you - I wish I could buy a million copies of this book of poetry and hand them out. I wish it were required reading in schools.
Where has our empathy gone? I will cuddle with my Ginger Boy and let my tears soak his fur and later he will lick my face clean - pure love. I wish more humans recognized our connection to one another - cat, to rat, to calf, to bee. I want to be with the humans who get it and with the beautiful innocent ones who were not born human - they are my heart.
Thank you for sharing your work with the world, Gretchen 🤍
Merged review:
Oh my heart. I feel what the poet feels. I’m still processing what I’ve read but I can tell you - I wish I could buy a million copies of this book of poetry and hand them out. I wish it were required reading in schools.
Where has our empathy gone? I will cuddle with my Ginger Boy and let my tears soak his fur and later he will lick my face clean - pure love. I wish more humans recognized our connection to one another - cat, to rat, to calf, to bee. I want to be with the humans who get it and with the beautiful innocent ones who were not born human - they are my heart.
Thank you for sharing your work with the world, Gretchen 🤍
Where has our empathy gone? I will cuddle with my Ginger Boy and let my tears soak his fur and later he will lick my face clean - pure love. I wish more humans recognized our connection to one another - cat, to rat, to calf, to bee. I want to be with the humans who get it and with the beautiful innocent ones who were not born human - they are my heart.
Thank you for sharing your work with the world, Gretchen 🤍
Merged review:
Oh my heart. I feel what the poet feels. I’m still processing what I’ve read but I can tell you - I wish I could buy a million copies of this book of poetry and hand them out. I wish it were required reading in schools.
Where has our empathy gone? I will cuddle with my Ginger Boy and let my tears soak his fur and later he will lick my face clean - pure love. I wish more humans recognized our connection to one another - cat, to rat, to calf, to bee. I want to be with the humans who get it and with the beautiful innocent ones who were not born human - they are my heart.
Thank you for sharing your work with the world, Gretchen 🤍
February 26, 2022
Beautiful and sharp poems. Illustrations throughout are gorgeous.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews