An Unorthodox Guide to Wildlife

"Katie Vatour's extraordinary debut collection is an eclectic examination of the space where humans and animals meet, where migratory patterns encounter commercial flights, where moose clash with midsize sedans, and birds appear as fishermen, security guards, and street performers. There are riffs on the chameleon and lyrebird, and odes to buffalo and shark. With poems at once intuitive yet idiosyncratic, visceral yet cerebral, AN UNORTHODOX GUIDE TO WILDLIFE considers how animals exist in our lives and imaginations -- as autonomous creatures, as mimics, and as bellwethers of environmental change -- and how this relationship refracts our understanding of the human animal. At times humorous, tragic, or both, these poems tell the story of natural existence in an often unnatural world." -- Back cover.