The Black Bear Inside Me (Pitt Poetry Series)

Becker celebrates the interconnectedness of creatures and places--never losing sight that much will turn out precarious, illusory, provisional. These poems speak, in ardent voices, about our affinities: an articulate, black bear mourns habitat loss; a frail man and failing dog become one; a scientist and her African grey parrot research language acquisition for thirty years. Ecologies interlace, as when a troubled family "sacrifices one member, / as plants surrender leaves in times of drought." Becker responds with rage and wit to corporate excess and intractable geo-politics. Love and friendship empower in wry narratives, though time "mows" down our days, though we may never escape "original cruelties." Tragedies permeating our enmeshed, global identities haunt the book: the massacre of gay youth in Orlando; the terrors facing Cambodian teenagers working fishing boats. Wise, capacious, by turns unsettling and joyous, The Black Bear Inside Me incorporates histories and losses into a luminous present.

• | Author: Robin Becker
• | Publisher: University Of Pittsburgh Press
• | Publication Date: Feb 12, 2018
• | Number of Pages: 72 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback/Poetry
• | ISBN-10: 0822965240
• | ISBN-13: 9780822965244