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Reviews 2011 > Brute Neighbors

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message 1: by Kathleen (new)

Kathleen | 143 comments Brute Neighbors: Urban Nature Poetry, Prose, and Photography Brute Neighbors: Urban Nature Poetry, Prose, and Photography by Chris Green

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I'm in this book! It's an anthology of pieces about "urban nature" or finding nature in or alongside the city, or confronting our wilderness/civilization issues. It's primarily poems, but there are mini-essays and short stories, too, plus color and black & white photography.

It's one of the interesting DePaul University collaborative anthologies that is, at first and while supplies last, given out free to those who ask via aperson@depaul.edu, so if this is a special interest of yours, email and ask for a copy, giving your address! A previous anthology celebrated the inauguration of Barack Obama, and that sea change in the USA.

As always with an anthology, there were pieces I really, really liked and some that I read quickly without being moved or provoked to thought. One of my favorite poets, Richard Jones, is in it, and I loved his poem "The Fox," about that fleeting sighting of a fox in the city, told simply, so the poem makes it happen just as it happens in life. (There are other fox/coyote poems, and I had sent my own "Coyote" from Living on the Earth, but I see why the editor took the one about snakes mating and time spiraling up in smoked ever since Hiroshima.... "Coyotes of Lakeshore Drive," by Kristy Bowen, is about human coyotes.)

Anyway, this book is full of surprising urban nature encounters, gritty realities, and startling beauties. I'm glad to be in it, and glad to have read it.



View all my reviews


message 2: by Sarah (new)

Sarah (sarahj) | 1757 comments Mod
Great concept. I love the cover, too. I have requested one - let's see if there are any left.
I like Kristy Bowen, and have heard you speak highly of Richard Jones, too, PLUS you're in there, so I am crosing my fingers.


message 3: by Kathleen (new)

Kathleen | 143 comments Well, my poem is weird and nonlinear...but still somehow concrete. There will surely be something you like in there!


message 4: by Nina (new)

Nina | 1383 comments Sounds like an interesting collection, I hope I can get one also.


message 5: by Antonia (new)

Antonia (toniclark) | 137 comments Lots of good reasons to read this anthology! It sounds good. I requested a copy, too.


message 6: by Kathleen (new)

Kathleen | 143 comments Yay! I am glad this is getting out there!


message 7: by Karen (new)

Karen (kweyant) | 164 comments I love nature poems (excluding the ever famous Mary Oliver, whose work I just "can't get into...") and am interested in how the urban world intersects with nature. Will look this book up!


message 8: by Antonia (new)

Antonia (toniclark) | 137 comments Ditto on Mary Oliver, Karen!


message 9: by Kathleen (new)

Kathleen | 143 comments Some people in this book are actually afraid of nature. That's why they are urban.

I love Mary Oliver but must take her a little at a time. She drives my mother sort of crazy.


message 10: by Antonia (new)

Antonia (toniclark) | 137 comments That was fast. My copy arrived today. Great poem, Kathleen. Not weird at all. "But the sifting had been done. . . ." I'm looking forward to reading the rest. Of course, I read yours first. Thanks again for the tip on the free copies!


message 11: by Kathleen (new)

Kathleen | 143 comments Thanks so much, and I'm so glad these books are going out there in the world!


message 12: by Nina (new)

Nina | 1383 comments My copy arrived yesterday!


message 13: by Kathleen (new)

Kathleen | 143 comments Yay!


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