Wolves in Shells

Kimberly Ann Priest is an assistant professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures at Michigan State University. She is the author of the poetry books Slaughter the One Bird and tether and lung.

“In the first poem, Kimberly Ann Priest evokes a moment of ‘dismantled vigilance-nothing encroaching, nothing to hunt,’ and this becomes the quest of these stunning poems as the speaker moves through the effects of abuse and homelessness into a world free of predation. The voice in this book is strong, astute, and vulnerable as the poet reclaims her history and its fragmented beauty alongside the story of a wolf, her totem creature. Priest writes with a keen eye and great musical dexterity, creating a book that is both compelling and crucial.”-Betsy Sholl, Maine poet laureate emeritus and author of As If a Song Could Save You “Of wolves and shells, holy howls and spirals, does Kimberly Ann Priest weave her sacred tapestry of lyrical outpouring; in one poem she writes ‘because I feel like thunder often, dance like snow; because I am living.’ And her poems are so fiercely alive and soaring and plunging on the page that it both hurts and fills one up to read them. Hers is a startling new voice in American poetry that can never be forgotten.”-Robert Vivian, author of All I Feel Is Rivers “Wolves in Shells is a powerful collection that details what it means to be a woman in the twenty-first century. In it, Kimberly Ann Priest documents a life of resilience after homelessness, abuse, intergenerational trauma, and witnessing the violence of America. Drawing from her cross-country travels and emotional connections to wildlife-particularly the wolves of Yellowstone National Park-Priest illustrates, in captivating detail, the strength of an individual woman who is both hunted and too often harmed but who ultimately ‘become[s] her own pack’ to ‘survive.’”-Sunni Brown Wilkinson, author of Rodeo, winner of the 2024 Donald Justice Poetry Prize “Wolves in Shells by Kimberly Ann Priest is a piercing rebuke of ‘our dependency on machinery/ that harms us.’ That machinery is patriarchy, marriage, and gender inequality. A blistering chronicle of a life lost-children, home, health-and regained. Muriel Rukeyser asked, ‘What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?/ The world would split open.’ Each of these poems moves with the honesty of an ax.”-TomÁs Q. MorÍn, author of Let Me Count the Ways: A Memoir

• The HowlSays the MolluskI Wanted to Be a BoyWhen Anxious, They Tell Us to Make Our World SmallerOld ShellWolf StoryMy Mother Wears a Bikini at South Haven BeachA Pedagogy for Lesser BodiesHow to Do SubtractionTaxonomyElegy for CharleyField Note on Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of SpaceTwo WolvesEverything’s FineOpen MicSteven TurnballAfter LeavingI Don’t Tell My Daughter I Wrote Another Wolf PoemAmong Fingernail ClamsProtectionsAt the Eli and Edythe Broad Art MuseumA Patch of BlueLuxuriesOn the Ishnala TrailDadFor Practical PurposesBecause Memory, I Am Told, Is Unreliable-Irregular Patterns of Endangered MigrationsMountain StoryField Note on Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of SpaceThe Unusual Art of Living WellHow to Forgive the PredatorAfter I Tell a Man I Can’t Date Him Because of My Hidden DisabilityHunter’s MoonNocturneGestationAmericaBordersUnpackingPreacher’s DaughterMy Daughter and I Gather Stones at Empire BeachAt the Butterfly HabitatFirst Visit to the Sister Survivors ExhibitSpirit of the AnimalUpon Viewing KatrÍn SigurdardÓttir’s MetamorphicAt a Monastic RetreatThe HunterThe Book of BirdsAfter My Father Tells Me He Loves the 23rd PsalmField Note on Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of SpaceMy Grandmother’s AshesThe World Is Whatever We Choose to Make ItElegy for My Daughter Who Has Never Known a ParadiseCivil AssaultThis MuchRootThey Tell Us to Live in the Moment Because the Moment Is All We May HaveSmile BackAcknowledgmentsNotes