Description
“Zoodikers: A Bestiary is a kooky naturalist’s exhibit in which every poem is an animal panting in the Anthropocene mirror. The book’s title—a Victorian exclamation—suits this wildly abundant lyric trip propelled by exuberant diction and syntactical muscularity.” —L.J. Sysko, Author of The Daughter of Man
“In Zoodikers: A Bestiary, Conroy conducts poetic experiments, but she also takes readers on a trip to view a collection of creatures—a bestiary—which she has arrayed before us and which she describes in ways that are joyful, a little hectic, adorned, lavish, untamed.” —Mark Wunderlich, Author of God of Nothingness
“These poems are a gumbo of fable, myth, and imagination used to test the boundaries of our consciousness, as the poet strives for opus maximus, to change myself by changing the world.” —Nick Makoha, Author of Kingdom of Gravity
“Zoodikers is a major book, in the middle of itself and our world. The empathy, the humanity, and the inventiveness find their spaces in Conroy’s remarkable compendium of life, their bestiary is equally comfortable in being grimoire, taxonomy, and encyclopedia. It’s a startling achievement, bringing us to our own interjection of surprise, and up there with the best books I’ve read in years.” — Jodi Johnson, Co-Judge for The Richard Mathews Prize for Poetry
“Reading Flower Conroy’s Zoodikers: A Bestiary is an exhilaration. I marvel at the leaps and swerves that animate each of the prose poems in this collection, and feel as if, in Conroy’s hands, the English language has quadrupled in size. Conroy’s ecstatic voice creates a vertigo of beauty and strangeness. Filled with praise and lament, these poems combine personal history, empathy, and otherworldliness with pyrotechnic perception.” —Catherine Barnett, Author of Solutions for the Problem of Bodies in Space
“Flower Conroy’s explosive new collection of prose poems is tender, animalistic, and a feminist phenomenon. Lush with language, Conroy is surreal, loquacious, and hilarious. She explores the landscape of women’s experience through the lens of beast, grueling and complete with agency. Through animal, Conroy identifies the base self, and it’s an extraordinary ride.” —Tracey Knapp, Author of Mouth
