Fish & Wild Life (NWVS #140) by Janna Knittel

“Janna Knittel creates irresistible images from the heart of feathers, fins, and furs.  She waits with a crow in a cage of reindeer bones, runs with the bright skin of fish, and worries about the overnight march of bears.  These poems praise the bloodlines of natural mercy.”

–Gerald Vizenor is the author of Favor of Crows.

“Janna Knittel focuses a keen eye and sharp ear on the natural world, observing both the creatures and human companions there. These poems reveal, with dignity and precision, the hunger that drives us—whether fisherman, mink, salmon, or poet—wherever the ‘leap and fail’ of wild life is found.”

–Patricia Kirkpatrick

“Janna Knittel’s poems are distinguished by her acute, passionate attention to creaturely detail. Her masterful feeling for the dynamics of line, sentence, and phrase here contribute to something magnificent—a sympathetic vision of the entire scope and depth of being. Meticulous and wild, Janna Knittel’s Fish & Wild Life pulses with animal vigor.”

–Peter Campion