Synopsis
As our treatment of nonhuman animals is increasingly implicated in planetary crises—from climate change to global pandemics to unprecedented rates of biodiversity loss and species extinction—it’s clear that an urgent reconsideration of our relationship to other animals is not only necessary but overdue.
How we write about animals, how we represent them in our poems and stories, doesn’t simply reflect how we relate to them in the world; it also shapes how we treat them. Any cultural shift in how we conceive of other animals requires a shift in how we read and write about them. The New Sentience seeks to help catalyze this shift by ushering in a new kind of animal poetry, what editors Ashley Capps and Allison Titus dub “kinpoetics.” Whereas animals in Western poetry have disproportionately functioned as symbols, the poems in this anthology foreground a meaningful awareness of animal sentience and subjectivity, depicting other animals as individuals with dynamic selfhood, personalities, and emotional lives.
Stylistically wide-ranging, the poets featured here, among them Wendell Berry, Lucille Clifton, E. E. Cummings, Mary Oliver, Ross Gay, and Margaret Atwood, apply scrutinous lyrical attention to the animal experience in such surprising and illuminating ways that the reader can’t avoid an earnest reexamination of what humans owe our more-than-human kin. With humility, empathy, and curiosity, the work in this anthology reaffirms the vital connections between humans, animals, and the natural world. This pioneering book will impel readers to a deeper understanding of the lives of the creatures that share our planet and will inspire poets and writers to a more compassionate, meaningful engagement with animal subjects and lives.
About the Authors
Ashley Capps is the author of Mistaking the Sea for Green Fields. The recipient of fellowships from the Iowa Arts Council, the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, and the National Endowment for the Arts, she works as a writer, editor, and researcher for the nonprofits Free from Harm and A Well-Fed World. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina.
Allison Titus is the author of three books of poems, including the recent collection High Lonesome, and the novel The Arsonist’s Song Has Nothing to Do with Fire. She teaches in New England College's low-residency MFA program and works as a freelance editor and proofreader. She lives in Richmond, Virginia.
Alexis Pauline Gumbs is the author of Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde and Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Animals, which won a Whiting Writers’ Award. She lives in Durham, North Carolina.
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