Features
- Cover Type: Paperback with 96 pages
- Published by: Coffee House Press July 1, 1990
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0918273781
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0918273789
-
Book Dimensions:
9 x 6 x 0.3 inches
- Weighs: 3.5 ounces
From Publishers Weekly
This charming book-length sonnet sequence answers what Greenberg ( Heavy Wings ) believes is the only serious question: "why do we live with animals/with all those people waiting to be our pals . . . ?" In reply, he tells us that we keep animals (most often household dogs and cats, here) because they need us--"oh, it's lovely to be missed.sic to justify / one's comings and goings by another's needs." Animals freely share their bliss in sheer being, and protect us from mysterious or evil forces. They alter our vision, teaching us "how all the colors and dispositions they've shared / with us will not let the world be merely what we think." In Greenberg's poems, animals evoke nostalgia for lost childhood and restore for us the primeval world of our ancestors--bones and blood. They are an essential mirror; without them, we cannot discover our true natures. Greenberg sometimes strays from his subject into discussions of free enterprise, the environment and subatomic particles; his poems are least interesting when only incidentally linked to his main theme. But most are marvelously companionable, convincing us that "if animals didn't exist, we'd have to invent them."
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Product Review
The Air Is Eaten Up By Sunlight And The Clean Snow
All Our Lives Dreamdogs, Dreamcats Have Lived
All The Season's Holidays Are Past:
And Then There Are Some Places It Doesn't Help
Bird At The Feeder, Bird On The Rail: Chickadee
Born Into A House With Only A Mother And Father
But I Didn't Give An Inch: He's A Yellow Lab
The Child Of Your Dreams Slips Into The World Wet
The Dog Lies On The Rug In A Patch Of Sun
The Hand Trembles: If There Were No Animals
Here's The Cat That Prefers To Drink From The Bowl
Here's This Pen That Cost A Dollar Eighty
How Far Would The World Have Ever Gotten Past
How Much Like You These Subatomic Bits
The Howl That Reaches From The Dog Right Up
I Walk In The Roseville Pet Cemetery Where
I've Been To The Woods Again And Heard The Story
If, From The Concept Of Animals You Take
If, When I Wake At Four A.m., The Room's
In Case Of Emergency Please Notify
Just Like The Dog That Tries To Run And Pee
Life Inside A Tornado's Not Any Life
The Man Sitting In His Living Room Window
Mother Told Me Pigs Make Perfect Pets
No Then, No One Home, No One, Not A
Oh My Babies, He Cries, Direct As Any
Ok, That Was Easy Enough And Quick: Therfore
The Old Dog Enters The Water As If It Were
The Only Sign Of Life In The House Is A Note
Prescription: Dog: Take One Three Times A Day
Set The Clock For Six A.m.: Tomorrow
Sit. Speak. Fetch. Down. Stay
Some Days Even The Grass Shouts
Something's On The Prowl Out There And We
There Are More Ways To Go Than Animals, Every
There Are Things In The Air Of Which We Do Not Speak
There's Four Walls Here You Can Bounce Off Of
There's Only One Serious Question, And This
This Substantial Ball Of Fur, The Earth
Though Whatever You Let In The House Can Eat You
The Three-inch-high Wooden Statue My Grand
To Be Reminded, When A Summer Morning Shudders
To Know, Finally, Nothing: A Refuge Everyone
Took Old Sonny Into A Bar One Time
Trees Are Such Sad Pals, That will not Come
Two Blocks Straight Ahead And One Block Right
The Uncle Who Ran Away To Sea, The Cousin
Unlike The Way You Leave A Spoon And A Dish
We Are That Stuffed Cat That Guards The Hats
We Walk Out To The Garden On This Spring
Well, Yes, Ok, Then, But Why These Particular
Were They Too Busy To Have Pets, Those Jewish
What The Computer Has To Say Is That We
Whatever You Let In The House Can Eat You Up
When I Gave Up At Last The Lifelong Search
When The Dog Comes Home With A Deer Leg In His Mouth
Why Is That Grown Man Standing About
Winter Again - Almost - And The Foolish Yellow
With Loss, With The Endless Nibbling Away
You And I, Dear, In Our Separate Cages Hang
--
Table of Poems from Poem Finder®
Reader ReviewsI have been unreasonably fond of this little volume of sonnets since I stumbled onto it at the local public library more than ten years ago. The common subject of the sonnets is the unreasonable fondness some of us share for animals, and indeed for living with them. As a glimpse inside the volume will assure you, these verses are not jolly doggerel, but fine and serious poems.
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