Description
Poetry. "WE SLEPT THE ANIMAL is one of the most intensely populated books since Whitman—and yet, 'We are made / in the image of loss,' Kalamaras reminds us in 'Letter to Eric from Cripple Creek.' Like the Richard Hugo book which is precursor, we find poems and letters here, but addressed to a wider range, a vaster group of Americans, living and dead and to come. I know of no other book with this generosity, with this ambition so divested of ego. 'I know what it's been to step west,' Kalamaras admits, as The Rocky Mountain West, indeed the country as a whole, become populations engaged with complexity and love. There is mourning here, but even more celebration."—Bin Ramke
Author Bio
George Kalamaras is former Poet Laureate of Indiana (2014-2016). He is the author of twenty-one collections of poetry-thirteen full-length books and eight chapbooks-as well as a critical study on language theory. He has published two previous books of poetry with Dos Madres Press, We SLEPT THE ANIMAL: LETTERS FROM THE AMERICAN WEST (2021) and LUMINOUS IN THE OWL'S RIB (2019). A recipient of various national and state prizes for his poetry, he spent several months in India in 1994 on an Indo-U.S. Advanced Research Fellowship. In addition to his publications in the United States, his poems have appeared in print journals in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America and have been translated into Bengali and Spanish. He is Professor Emeritus of English at Purdue University Fort Wayne, where he taught for thirty-two years. George and his wife, writer Mary Ann Cain, have nurtured beagles in their home for nearly thirty years, first Barney and Bootsie, and now Blaisie. George, Mary Ann, and Blaisie divide their time between Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Livermore, Colorado, in the mountains north of Fort Collins.
Author City: FORT WAYNE, IN USA