Approaching Animals From A to Z

ISBN 0 9541573 3 8
Published 2004
200 x 130 mm: 70 pp: softback with full colour cover.
Price: £9.99 plus £1.50 postage and packing

Animals are ‘neighbours/ yet strangers’ though close to us/ always standing apart’. How should we approach them? These poems explore what the animal kingdom means to us, visually and imaginatively

An initial sequence looks at how we relate to animals through gene and instinct and symbol. The forty or so individual poems which follow, from Albatross to Zoophyte, take unexpected turns. A concluding poem salutes the allure of animals and observes how their restlessness fires up/ the pulse of life within us.

The individual animal subjects are Albatross, Aphids, Badger, Boomslang, Chameleon, Chimpanzee, Cuttlefish, Donkey, Dragonfly, Eagle, Eel, Ferret, Geese, Green Woodpecker, Greyhound, Hamadryad, Honey-bee, Inchworm, Jigger, Kudu, Lamprey, Lemmings, Manatee, Newt, Ostriches, Pangolin, Plankton, Plasmodium, Quetzal, Rat, Sacred Ibis, Spiders, Starlings, Tawny Owls, Temple Elephant, Three Monkeys, Tiger, Urchin, Venus’s Girdle, Vultures, Wild Boar, Xenopus, Yellowhammer, Zebu, Zoophytes.

Six of these follow: