Living with Wolves

by Anne Haven McDonnell

What is possible when people learn to listen not only to each other, but also to the wolves? On a remote island in British Columbia, the wolves are back. After this island had its own “war on wolves,” by the 1970s, the whole population was wiped out. Decades later, the wolves returned—not through human intervention, but by choosing to swim for miles across the ocean to reach their old homeland. The poems in Living with Wolves are inspired by interviews, encounters, and experiences that inhabit different perspectives of the complex collisions when wolves and people co-exist.

Genres: Poetry

39 pages, Paperback

Published September 10, 2020

Reviews

[Katherine Davis-Gibbon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was moved by this special collection. It was raw, visceral, and gripping--I devoured it in one sitting (even as I chastised myself to slow down and savor). I was truly immersed: drawn through my senses into this world, but simultaneously provoked to step back and reflect. It is rare for me to respond to poetry this way. The genre can lend itself to extremes, but this collection was seamless and balanced: a direct transmission of experience. I highly recommend it and will follow this writer.

[Sarah Giragosian · Rating 5 out of 5]

How do we live with the feral animals among us? How do we mitigate our fear of others and of ourselves? In resplendent lyric poems, this chapbook is a primer for anyone learning to navigate their own "ecology of fear."

[Derek Sheffield · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gave a copy of this book to one of the lead wolf biologists at Yellowstone. He loves it as much as I do. This is the poetic "research" to accompany all the ecological data about how we humans can manage to live in a way that doesn't destroy the living systems of our world.