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.

Author City: TUCSON, AZ USA

Poems of Michael Gessner have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and as finalists for "Discovery"/The Nation, and the Pablo Neruda Award. BEAST BOOK is his fourth poetry title. His work has been featured in American Letters & Commentary, American Literary Review, The Journal of The American Medical Association, Oxford Magazine, and others. He has read at University College Dublin, and the American-Irish Historical Society (NYC). His work has been called "striking" (David Barber, The Atlantic) and "structurally ingenious" (Jonathan Galassi, Farrar, Straus & Giroux.) He lives in Tucson.