Great Regulars: That argument is as follows:

imaginative writers since antiquity have noticed that we seem to share some emotions, some ways of being in the world, with animals. Those noticings remind us that we can't just do as we wish without consequences; the noticings, and the literary art that reflects those noticings, can humble us, rebuking our arrogance and our aggressions, by depicting or prompting shame. Those noticings might also lead writers to imagine joining the company of nonhuman animals--to imagine themselves among, say, birds or fish, joining the swallows' or dolphins' collective life.

from Powells: Review-A-Day: Our Beastlier Demarcations

~~~~~~~~~~~

I'll just let [Mary] Oliver speak for herself.

--From New and Selected Poems: Volume One:

The Kookaburras
In every heart there is a coward and a procrastinator.

from Powells: Review-A-Day: Of the Perfect, Stone-Hard Beauty of Everything

~~~~~~~~~~~

Broken up into groups of three lines, each line of verse is a simple, personal definition of how something acts on "me". The lines interrelate meaningfully within each triad:

The millennium enfolds me
The century situates me
The decade decorates me

These short poems demonstrate precisely what makes Leve's style so powerful: as one reads the poems, their rules of construction become evident, and these simple, flexible principles fuse seamlessly with the words themselves to imply relationships and subtle meanings. Leve's choice to place the poetry at the end is another brilliant example of his ability to yoke structure to meaning.

from Powells: Review-A-Day: Suicide: Tropes Made Original, Even Artistic

~~~~~~~~~~~