A surreal new collection from an acclaimed poet
Hallucinogenic plants chant in chorus. A thoughtful dog grants an
interview. A caterpillar offers life advice. Amy Gerstler's newest
collection of poetry, Dearest Creature, marries fact and fiction in a
menagerie of dramatic monologues, twisted love poems, and epistolary
pleadings. Drawing on sources as disparate as Lewis Carroll and Mary
Shelley's Frankenstein, as well as abnormal psychology, etiquette, and
archaeology texts, these darkly imaginative poems probe what it means to
be a sentient, temporary, flesh-and-blood beast, to be hopelessly,
vividly creaturely.