The Uncollected Animals

Leading poet and activist John Kinsella brings together amajor international collection of contemporary and historical poetry that speaksto the rights and welfare of animals. The Uncollected Animals is a unique anthology of poetrybased around all non-human animal life, with the welfare and rights of animalsat the forefront. The anthology includes over forty commissioned poems, andother poems provided by poets specifically for the anthology. These are setagainst an historical context of animal-referencing poems that range in timefrom ancient Greece to the 21st century. Kinsella’s introduction offersinsights into the eternal relationship of poetry to animals, and the creativearrangement of the poems yields startling contrasts and alliances that willdraw readers into a powerful relationship with the work. The book includes 165 poems representing some sixteencountries and many different cultures. Together, this collective utterancerespects and conserves a great variety of perspectives. Writing in a full rangeof styles, the diverse voices found inside include poets from Aristophanes,Blake, Coleridge, Du Fu, Melville, and Wordsworth to Anne Carson, CA Conrad,Kimiko Hahn, Paul Laurence Dunbar, D. H. Lawrence, Sylvia Plath, Maya Angelou, RitaDove, and Marianne Moore, to important young voices, to performer/lyricistssuch as Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore. At all times, animals, their rights, andtheir welfare are at the fore, be they invertebrates, bird, mammal, reptile,amphibian, or fish. In a time of human-induced mass extinctions and rapidhuman-induced climate change, this subject could not be more vital andnecessary for all of us to consider, embrace, and act on with empathy.