Michael Gessner

Beast Book Michael Gessner

Poetry. These poems are lively and smart and musical--Robert Pinsky. The poet embraces a 'beast-handler' family, servants to animals, and gamely joins in the ancient trade. Gessner shepherds in a menagerie of mythical beasts, mentors and poets. Beast Book emerges as Leviathan, great-mouthed and green-lipped, in mythographic regions where 'heart eats heart, ' our own included--Amy King