The Animals
Richard Grossman
9780984649709
424 pages
American Letters Press
Overview
This beautiful, revised edition of Richard Grossman's 400-poem pastoral, The Animals, invites us to enter a world where all the inhabitants speak the same language, creating a powerful literary work that voices the concerns of the entire global community.
In its exploration of personal issues and emotions, this unique and moving book affirms the great family of terrestrial life, seeking to unveil the sources of its wisdom and beauty, sources that lie at the heart of all poetry. At the center of the book is a chorus of two hundred different animals, representing the broad spectrum of earthly life. As each of the creatures sings to us, their individual stories reveal how all life shares the same suffering, dignity, and joy. Surrounding these poems are dialogues between the animals as a flock and a shepherd who tends them. The Animals has been described as an environmental bible, a manual of inspiration for people who are working to nourish and heal the Earth.Author Bio
Born in Lubbock, Texas in 1943 and raised in Minneapolis, Richard Grossman received a BA in English Literature from Stanford University in 1965. After working as a high-level executive for a multinational financial services company, he left the corporate world in 1976 in order to devote his time to writing. His first book of poetry, Tycoon Boy, was published by kayak in 1977 and was followed by The Animals (Zygote Press, 1983; Graywolf Press, 1990; revised edition, American Letters Press, 2011). Since 1990 Grossman has been concentrating on a trilogy of novels entitled American Letters, a “divine comedy” of contemporary life, comprising The Alphabet Man, The Book of Lazarus (published by FC2 in 1993 and 1997 respectively), and The InterstateBingo (upcoming from alp). These works are the foundational basis of Breeze Avenue, Grossman’s forthcoming 3,000,000-page work on heaven. Breeze Avenue also includes more than 30 discrete books, which are being published over time in print and eBook editions, as well as a group of Poetic Objects, artworks in a wide range of media that move the project beyond the page and the screen into the real world. Grossman’s poetry has appeared in over a hundred publications, including the Southern, Paris, North American, Chicago, and Hudson reviews. The Alphabet Man won the Illinois State University/Fiction Collective Two National Fiction Competition and was nominated for a PENWest Fiction Prize.