Customer Reviews

The Animals

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"The Animals" is by the far the finest and most intelligent book of poetry I have read in the last twenty years. I cannot praise it enough for its power and spiritual depth. Before beginning reading I wondered how I was going to maintain my interest level through 500 poems, but I found myself riveted to each page! I was calling my friends on the Upper East Side and in Brooklyn in order to recite certain phrases over the telephone! A subtle and compelling narrative forms the underlying structure of the work, which could be described as an epic pastoral. The central protagonist is a shepherd who interacts and converses with his flock of hundreds of different animals. Almost every aspect of human (and animal) thought and experience is touched upon. Clearly, Grossman has outclassed his contemporaries in his masterful command of language, which he shapes and molds with astonishing simplicity and effortless grace. The reviewer of August 2, 2000, "Doc", obviously failed to understand or connect with the material. His review is typical of literary critics who are suddenly puzzled and confused when unexpectedly confronted with great art. "The Animals" is an absolute must for all serious lovers of poetry.

Richard Grossman's extensive (and extended) series of poems "The Animals" is perhaps the most famous of environmentalist poems. Using the figure of a shepherd to interact and speak with a couple of hundred different animals, Grossman attempts to find the common ground among all of the animals of the planet. Unfortunately, I found myself not being able to take many of these poems seriously, not least because of my intimate knowledge of Ogden Nash's animal poems, which are far funnier and wittier than even the best of Grossman's poems. But it's an ambitious project at that, and I can recognize and appreciate Grossman's sincerity. There is a remarkable awareness of each animal's individual behavior, even as it melds into a stylistic sameness that may or may not have the purpose of arguing that all life is of one equality. In short, if you love animals and are willing to put up with a certain amount of borderline New Age arguments, you'll enjoy "The Animals."