Spit

DANIEL LASSELL is the author of Ad Spot, a limited edition chapbook. His poems have been published in the Colorado Review, Southern Humanities Review, Puerto del Sol, Birmingham Poetry Review, and Prairie Schooner. He grew up in Kentucky, where he raised llamas and alpacas. He now lives in Colorado with his wife and children.

Rife with biblical references, Daniel Lassell’s poems suggest that the animal kingdom is distinct, regardless of our claims of preservation, and cannot be governed by humans who lack the capacity to first understand ourselves. The devastation of this collection is in being deftly led through the experiences within its microcosm, only to question the whole of existence. In image after taut image, the terror and magic of life are all.—Chelsea Dingman, author of Through a Small Ghost and Thaw

• Contents I. The Llama Named James and John Sons of Thunder Laws of Motion The Wolves Next Door The Lives of Chickens Cheers The Leaning Barn An Account of a Llama’s Death Sinkhole Tasting Moonshine Spit II. Mom Woke to a Coyote Staring in Her Window Myself, a Barbed Wire Blood Lungs How to Pet a Llama Taking in the Stray Taking Care Lyme Silent Treatment On the Fellowship of Rabies Climates Bottom Land It’s No Good Brush Fire At the Storm Cellar III. The Afterlife Tussle Leaving the Farm Portrait of Truth as a Satisfied Belly Evolution Chart Everywhere the Salt The Way Home IV. Breakage Inadequate Prayers Final Visit Nothing is Clean in the Country Monochromatic Untethering End of the Llamas The Light and Where It Lives Finishing the Harvest The Lesser Distances Notes Acknowledgments