72 pages / 6.00 x 9.00 inches / no illustrations
Education / Higher Education | Poetry / American-General | Poetry / Women Authors
Wild Kingdom explores the world of academia, examining this strange landscape populated by faculty, administrators, and students. Using what she calls “received academic forms,” Jehanne Dubrow crafts poems that recall the language of academic documents such as syllabi, grading rubrics, and departmental minutes. “Honor Board Hearing,” a series of prose poems, depicts challenges frequently faced by undergraduates, offering fictionalized accounts of cases involving plagiarism, theft, sexual assault, and substance abuse.
As a rejoinder to the famous dictum that “academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low,” Dubrow maintains that, given the current moment, the stakes could not be higher. Even as it acknowledges the cruelty that exists within the academy, Wild Kingdom asks how scholars and educators can work to ensure that institutions of higher learning continue to nurture students and remain places of rigorous critical thinking.
Jehanne Dubrow is the author of eight collections of poems, including Dots & Dashes, Red Army Red, and Stateside. Her work has appeared in Poetry, New England Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and many other publications. She is professor of creative writing at the University of North Texas.
“Dubrow’s poetry is never less than astonishing.”—Alicia Ostriker
“The poems . . . ring with tension, echoed in modern, clear words paired with time-honored forms.”—Prairie Schooner
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