Clues from the Animal Kingdom
In his fifth collection of poems, Christopher Kennedy sifts through the detritus of the past to uncover the memories, images, and symbols that shape an individual’s consciousness. Looking to animals and their instincts for inspiration, drawing shape from the poet’s Irish Catholic working-class roots, these prose poems transcend grief and depression by seeking humanity’s place in the natural world.
Christopher Kennedy is the author of Clues from the Animal Kingdom (BOA Editions, Ltd., 2018) Ennui Prophet (BOA Editions, Ltd., 2011), Encouragement for a Man Falling to His Death (BOA Editions, Ltd., 2007), which received the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award, Trouble with the Machine (Low Fidelity Press, 2003), and Nietzsche’s Horse (Mitki/Mitki Press, 2001). He is one of the translators of Light and Heavy Things: Selected Poems of Zeeshan Sahil, (BOA Editions, Ltd., 2013), published as part of the Lannan Translation Series. His work has appeared in Ploughshares, Plume, New York Tyrant, Ninth Letter, Wigleaf, The Threepenny Review, Mississippi Review, and McSweeney’s. In 2011, he was awarded an NEA Fellowship for Poetry. He is a professor of English at Syracuse University where he directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing.
