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The Knowing Animals
Poems that sing, in various notes of female voice, the human being as an embodied, contemplative, feeling animal.
In Skov-Nielsen’s thrumming debut, The Knowing Animals, our consciousness is interconnected with the surrounding trees, bugs, rivers, atmospheres, and cosmos. Here, flowers escape Victorian domestication and ally with girls’ green powers of attraction. Here, the social politeness of motherly domesticity and the raw dangers of adolescent sexual awakening are shot through with blood pulsing under the skin, with oxygen exchanged in gasps of breath. Here, everything tender and petalling is also raw and mothervisceral.
This is a book of entanglements: the poems twist and turn through a plurality of metaphorical associations involving botany, zoology, astronomy, biology, psychology, and mythology to complicate and expand human conceptions of nature. At the same time, they explore themes such as motherhood, pregnancy and birth, sexuality, adolescence, and the rise of technology, all the while shifting through a variety of tones: romantic, mythological, religious, scientific, wistful, and playful.
“These poems prod and sing, distilling language with technical precision and the intimacy of a perceptive mind at work. Skov-Nielsen speaks to the urgency of the world we inhabit, particularly attuned to how the personal is entangled with the ecological…”—Cassidy McFadzean, author of Hacker Packer and Drolleries
“… These daring, over-the-top, five-sided, lyrical poems will keep you awake, basking in fever-bright light, rewilding and transforming your life, if you let them through the door.”—Jan Conn, author of Tomorrow’s Bright White Light
“The Knowing Animals drops an omniscient wild into multi-generational domesticity. …Like a live rabbit freed from the fox’s mouth, these poems twitch to run.”—Emily Nilsen, author of Otolith
In Skov-Nielsen’s thrumming debut, The Knowing Animals, our consciousness is interconnected with the surrounding trees, bugs, rivers, atmospheres, and cosmos. Here, flowers escape Victorian domestication and ally with girls’ green powers of attraction. Here, the social politeness of motherly domesticity and the raw dangers of adolescent sexual awakening are shot through with blood pulsing under the skin, with oxygen exchanged in gasps of breath. Here, everything tender and petalling is also raw and mothervisceral.
This is a book of entanglements: the poems twist and turn through a plurality of metaphorical associations involving botany, zoology, astronomy, biology, psychology, and mythology to complicate and expand human conceptions of nature. At the same time, they explore themes such as motherhood, pregnancy and birth, sexuality, adolescence, and the rise of technology, all the while shifting through a variety of tones: romantic, mythological, religious, scientific, wistful, and playful.
“These poems prod and sing, distilling language with technical precision and the intimacy of a perceptive mind at work. Skov-Nielsen speaks to the urgency of the world we inhabit, particularly attuned to how the personal is entangled with the ecological…”—Cassidy McFadzean, author of Hacker Packer and Drolleries
“… These daring, over-the-top, five-sided, lyrical poems will keep you awake, basking in fever-bright light, rewilding and transforming your life, if you let them through the door.”—Jan Conn, author of Tomorrow’s Bright White Light
“The Knowing Animals drops an omniscient wild into multi-generational domesticity. …Like a live rabbit freed from the fox’s mouth, these poems twitch to run.”—Emily Nilsen, author of Otolith
104 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 16, 2021
I admit that I do not often read poetry, but over these last few months I’ve worked my way through The Knowing Animals, by Emily Skov Nielsen. (Full disclosure: I am related to the poet, and very proud to acknowledge this.)
Perhaps other readers of poetry already know this, but I discovered that this is not a book to rush. First of all, I needed a dictionary handy, although that may be more a statement of my own vocabulary. Second, Skov Nielsen’s poetry is best savoured. There are so many lovely turns of phrase that spark contemplation from the tip of your tongue (yes, read them aloud), all the way through to your bones.
“…I’m Batman the animated version!
some kid hollers just as
the future enters us”
“Terror and Delight: twin sisters swapping clothes.”
Then there are many feeling moments. Laugh out loud moments. Nodding of head moments of agreement. Sadness, because there are also moments when I, a woman of a certain age, realize that perhaps I haven’t left a better world for this poet’s life.
Or is that the way it’s always been and always will be? A universal story.
Savour. Savour the words of this poet, Emily Skov Nielsen.
Perhaps other readers of poetry already know this, but I discovered that this is not a book to rush. First of all, I needed a dictionary handy, although that may be more a statement of my own vocabulary. Second, Skov Nielsen’s poetry is best savoured. There are so many lovely turns of phrase that spark contemplation from the tip of your tongue (yes, read them aloud), all the way through to your bones.
“…I’m Batman the animated version!
some kid hollers just as
the future enters us”
“Terror and Delight: twin sisters swapping clothes.”
Then there are many feeling moments. Laugh out loud moments. Nodding of head moments of agreement. Sadness, because there are also moments when I, a woman of a certain age, realize that perhaps I haven’t left a better world for this poet’s life.
Or is that the way it’s always been and always will be? A universal story.
Savour. Savour the words of this poet, Emily Skov Nielsen.
May 27, 2021
Captivated by the sections "Rewilding" and "Her Sharps," which were standouts for me personally, and where I thought Skov-Nielsen placed some of her most biting poems ("Cryptozoology," "Mother Earth," "After Reading a Poem by Rachel Rose," "Circus").
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews