LIVES OF THE ANIMALS by Robert Wrigley

Robert Wrigley, Lives of the Animals (Penguin Books, 2003).

(POETRY)   

Reviewed by Wilda Morris

                Most of the poems in Lives of the Animals could be considered “nature poetry,” but not necessarily in the way that genre is sometimes thought of. These poems are not sentimental sketches focused on the beauties of nature or the cleverness of the Creator. Rather, Wrigley gives us death, drought and mating, as well as movement and growth. All the senses are awakened as we read this collection. The poems present us with human beings among the deer, snakes, bears, mice—and other human beings. As he autographed my copy of the book, he told me that the “animal” he is most interested in is the human animal. But he also pictures interactions between other creatures, such as horse and snake, cat and song bird.

Wrigley shares unflinchingly honest pictures: ants exiting the eyes of the old buck as they “carry him away bit by gnawn bit” (“The Other World”), the frozen blood left in the snow where the narrator’s father fell from a ladder (“Helpful”), the boy setting fire to the rotting remains of the fallen horse, causing the horseflies to rise (“Horseflies”). He sees the rattlesnake as “eloquent and anachronistic,” admiring “the way he moves / out front of me, an undulant ornament on the car of my going” (“Following Snakes”).

                Some of the metaphors in this book are stunning and unexpected. One example is the likening of the snake moving ahead on the path to the ornament on the hood of a car, quoted above. In “Breaking Trail,” wind gusts combed “the beards of the yellow pines” till “every swatch of snow / lay whiskered as a dead man’s cheek.”  And that is just the first verse of this continuously stunning poem. In “Highway 12, Just East of Paradise, Idaho,” a doe, hit by a car “skidded along the right lane’s / fog line true as a cue ball.”

                In “Swallows” the narrator says he and his lover are pupils learning from “those thumb small / nestlings” above the hammock. Throughout the book, Wrigley invites us to learn from the animals we encounter. If we read carefully, we will find new ways of looking at and appreciating nature and what it—and the poet—can teach us. Wrigley, who is on the faculty of University of Idaho, told me that this book is “his favorite child.” It has become a favorite in my collection of poetry books.

NOTE: You can find an excerpt from the book and a biography of Robert Wrigley at http://redroom.com/member/robert-wrigley/books/lives-of-the-animals.