"Written following Marianne Boruch's 2019 Fulbright in Australia, and on the heels of the devastating fires that began after her departure, Bestiary Dark is filled with strange and sweet details, beauty, and impending doom-the drought, fires, and floods that have grown unspeakable in scale. These poems face the ancient, unsettling relationship of humans and the natural world-the looming effect we've wrought on wildlife-and what solace and repair our...

In this treasury of passionate and humorous encounters with animals, Stephen Mitchell has collected animal poems from many ages and cultures. Included here are excerpts from ancient masterpieces like The Hymn to the Sun by Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, The Book of Job, as well as haikus by Basho and Issa. Additional works included here are poems by Christopher Smart, William Blake, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Gerald Manley Hopkins. With some of the...

With The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, Caspar Henderson offers readers a fascinating, beautifully produced modern-day menagerie. But whereas medieval bestiaries were often based on folklore and myth, the creatures that abound in Henderson's book-from the axolotl to the zebrafish-are, with one exception, very much with us, albeit sometimes in depleted numbers. The Book of Barely Imagined Beings transports readers to a world of real creatures that...

In the wintry season, when we all delight in joyful thoughts of family, presents, and sugarplums, we mustn't forget that the night is dark and full of terrors. Thankfully, bold adventurers Benni Bødker and John Kenn Mortensen have journeyed far and wide to comb through ancient tomes, listen to folk tales, and spy upon loathsome lairs to catalog the most frightful creatures of the netherworld that appear around Christmastime.A Christmas Bestiary is...

Urban myths and legends from all over America are condensed in this collection. Through its pages various spectra pass, as the Chupacabra invokes and enumerates in one of the poems: "Creatures of the night and the sun. Covered Lady, Muqui, Yasy Yeteré, Alligator Man, Kharisiri, Whistler, Widow, Telesita, Curupira, Tata Elf, Cadejo, Just Judge of the Night, Witch Monkey, Holy Death, Demon of Dover, Wendigo, Girl with a scarf, The Crying Girl. Creatures...

An alphabet bestiary featuring mythical animals such as the amphisbaena, basilisk, and catoblepas.

On a train, a woman smells a familiar perfume and suddenly leaves her marriage. One hot afternoon a man confesses a horrifying secret about a child in his past. A tutor attempts to explain entropy to a bored schoolgirl. A woman buys the services of a man who comes with a mysterious medallion and scars from a distant war. The short stories in this collection focus on that fiercely hot space of desire, obsession, and the passion which transforms men...