Lives of the Animals

by Robert Wrigley

Lives of the Animals takes us to that place where the boundaries between predator and prey, the observer and the observed, merge, reverse, become re-imagined. We find ourselves inside a story of death and life, witness to acts of survival so primal they seem less instinctive than passionate. And it is passion that most informs these poems: the bond between lovers, between parent and child, between humans and other animals, both wild and domestic, that populate our shared world of hunger and need.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 2003

About the author

Robert Wrigley is the author of seven books of poetry, including, most recently, Earthly Meditations: New and Selected Poems (Penguin, 2006); Lives of the Animals (Penguin, 2003), winner of the 2005 Poets Prize; and Reign of Snakes (Penguin, 1999), winner of the 2000 Kingsley Tufts Award in Poetry. His book, In the Bank of Beautiful Sins (Penguin, 1995) won the San Francisco Poetry Center Book Award, and his poems have appeared in many periodicals, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Poetry, and The American Poetry Review. His poems have been reprinted twice in the Best American Poetry anthologies, and five times in the Pushcart Prize collections. Recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Idaho Commission on the Arts, Wrigley is Professor of English and teaches in the MFA Program in Writing at the University of Idaho. He lives in the woods near Moscow, Idaho, with his wife, the writer Kim Barnes. "

Reviews

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fierce & fearsome, and sentimental only at the right moments. There are moments in these poems that took my breath away.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aside from being printed in a really distracting font, I found the language of these poems to sometimes be a bit too over-embellished for my taste. It had the flourishes of calligraphy in places I would have preferred hand-printed notes. Very heavy use of adjective and combined adjectives...and the man loves the word "iridescent."

Perhaps however, the rich, embellished language is an intentional contrast to the harsh, death-filled, world about which the author writes. There are some amazing images in the book...flies that lift en mass in the shape of a dead horse.
A play on Donne's poem "The Flea" -- where a louse shares the blood between lovers. (This is a really over-the-top piece.)

In any event, the book has shock value and makes an impression that's hard to shake. Is it wonderful poetry? I don't know.

[Kasandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This took me a long time to finish - I had to live inside this book, nearly every poem a world unto itself. There is tremendous depth, crisp and sharp detail, and a clear-eyed honoring of animal life of all kinds without sentimentality. There is the constant remembering here that we ourselves are animals, no matter how often we may forget, or try to forget. There's brutality and cruelty, surprise, music, sadness, and wonder, as well as awe and mystery. Expertly crafted, with an exquisite balance of language with insight and a deft handling of language. Assured without ever being pretentious. A real stunner of a book, to re-read and savor.

[C. Varn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robert Wrigley's Lives of Animals sets to contrast the redemptive element of language to the brutality of the natural world. Wrigley sets up to portray what is essentially an anti-romantic and anti-pastoral vision of the world but use heightened language and close attention to form and image to redeem the some of the events. Wrigley's modes are modernist--disillusion, narrative, maximalist language. Wrigley's primary concern is the demarcation between human and animal, and what the exact difference may be: what is gained in being human and what is lost. Fascinating.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is more right up my alley. This book of poetry blew me away. I love how Wrigley is able to combine the prosaic and the poetic. And this volume is able to be thematically-unified without being gimmicky, never falling into a pattern of what “the animal poem” is.

[Georgia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is just outstanding. I detail and the language is so lush I have read and reread this book.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like the starkness of some of his poems,as in a description of a decompsing deer and then deftly moving into a spritual tone of death and aftrlife. Image and irony in his poems drew me in.

[Anneliz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant! Every poem had a great, unexpected punch to it! Love it!

[Caroline Liberatore-Logan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grotesque, visceral, whimsical, creaturely. A new favorite poet who demonstrates that particularity does not bog down a well-written poem, but rather authenticates it.

[CMarie Fuhrman · Rating 5 out of 5]

WHen I need to recenter my poetry soul, I always go back to Wrigley.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the first time I have read a book of poetry. I truly enjoyed it!

My poet friend recommended this book to me when I told him I was working on a goal of 12 books per year. He gave me the advice to read it like I would any other book. He thinks inexperienced poetry readers often make the mistake of thinking they need to read poetry differently than prose. They spend too much time "trying to figure out the meaning" through slow deliberate reading. He challenged me to avoid this and instead read quickly and smoothly through the pages. He told me to enjoy each poem like I would a song or a painting - beautiful for the form of expression, just as much as they are interesting for what they mean.

His advice was wonderful. I think I enjoyed the book much more than I would have otherwise. Following his advice I cruised through each poem and occasionally went back to slowly re-read and ponder a few poems when they caught my attention.

I have decided that I will read one book of poetry every year from now on because they are so interesting and beautiful (plus they are usually really short!).

Reading this book even inspired me to write my own poem!

[Bryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't like this collection as well as "Anato." my of Melancholy and Other Poems." Still good poetry, but it didn't grab me as well, and one too many of them seemed to involve entrails or feces. I realize both are facts of life in the animal world, but they didn't strike me as the best fodder for poesy.