A beautiful collection of poems that would be cherished by any animal lover! Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for a chance to read and review the book in exchange for an honest review.

Poetry has been and will always be word magic to me. I loved this beautiful collection of poems, illustrations, and meditations on animals and nature. The poems are categorized thematically (odes that praise, elegies that lament) which encourages readers to pick up the collection and choose a poem based on how they're feeling any given day. There is also a rich assortment of classic poets (such as John Clare and Emily Dickinson) as well as contemporaries. I'll be purchasing this book for my personal library and sharing these poems with my students.

I have been dipping into this book of poetry for some months now. There are so many poems to choose. All different, some serious, some filled with humour. A breadth of animals, so while some poems won’t be perfect for you there are others that will fill you with joy or give you a thoughtful pause in a busy day. Thank you to Storey Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC. The views expressed are all mine freely given.

“The Gift of Animals: Poems of Love, Loss, and Connection” (Storey Publishing, 2025) is a reflective, sensitive poetry collection for animal and nature lovers. Edited by poet-naturalist Alison Hawthorne Deming (“A Woven World,” “Science and Other Poems,” “The Monarchs”) with an introduction by “Braiding Sweetgrass” author Robin Wall Kimmerer, “The Gift of Animals” walks the precarious line between appreciation for and recognition of our worlds increasing species decline.

Ninety poetic offerings on themes such as Companionship, Lament, Praise, and The Least of Us comprise this book. And the poets themselves are also gifts, including: Lucille Clifton, Ellen Bass, Paisley Rekdal, Toi Derricotte, Camille Dungy, and Terrance Hayes. Spring bounties of literary riches!

Some of my favorite moments throughout Deming’s “The Gift of Animals:”

Donika Kelly “thought herself body enough for two, for we” in Love Poem: Chimera.

Aimee Nezhukumatahil’s nostalgia and grief in “Mr. Cass and the Crustaceans.”

Wendell Berry’s “day-blind stars” in “The Peace of Wild Things”

And Nikole Brown’s “would you let me tell your creatures how sorry I am” in “A Prayer to Talk to Animals.”

"The Gift of Animals" is a thoughtful, considered anthology melding poetry, climate change, and connectedness to animals.

Fantastic gift idea for graduation, Mother’s Day, birthdays, and more!

Thank you to Alison Hawthorne Deming, Storey Publishing, and NetGalley for the eARC!

This is a haunting, beautiful collection of poems about our complex relationships with animals of all kinds. I was repeatedly moved at the unique ways of describing different animals, and both our joy and grief at knowing and having known them. We are forever changed by loving an animal, if we will fully let them into our hearts.

Thank you to NetGalley and Storey Publishing, LLC for the eARC. All opinions are mine.

The Gift of Animals, edited by Alison Hawthorne Deming, is a beautiful collection of poems about our connection with animals. Some poems are lovely, some haunting, and the mix of voices from different times and cultures makes it interesting. It’s a great book for poetry lovers or anyone who loves animals and wants an easy way into poetry.

✷ updated review (03/03/25 hehe... long overdue)

the gift of the animals is a collection of poems celebrating, u might say, the gift of animals 😙 im big on contemporary poems & i rly liked the diversity of poems in this collection! i thought the way the poems were divided was interesting and yk we love to see ada limon anywhere. emm it's rated lower than it might be because i didn't think many of the poems contentwise lingered on my mind for as long as they might have 😓

thank you to netgalley for the chance to review!

I'm a lover of poetry, but I'm slowly accepting that contemporary pieces don't always resonate with me. After carefully reading all the poems in this collection, I truly see the intentions behind them, but more often than not, they left me wanting more.

The basic ideas were lovely, and I was excited to explore these wonderful artists' interpretations of animal gifts. However, as mentioned, the execution didn't quite land for me.

That said, the illustrations in the book were wonderful and definitely added to the experience. They brought a visual dimension to the poems, sometimes even enhancing the meaning where the words fell short.

While this collection might appeal to fans of experimental contemporary poetry. Despite my personal preferences, this book is a reminder that poetry is subjective, and what doesn't work for one reader might deeply move another.

There is not a whole lot I can say about this book seeing as how short it was but it was decently good

The first things that I enjoyed about this collection of poems were the illustrations and the way the poems are divided into themed sections. I experienced several different emotions while reading this collection. I normally wouldn't consider the themes of love, loss, and connection to be related to animals, but this book altered my view. I read a few poems to my local poetry group and they were well received. This collection has a wide variety of authors and poetry formats that would appeal to many readers.

This was a beautiful collection of poems about our deep and intimate connection with animals. If you love Mary Oliver’s poetry definitely give this collection a try.
Thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for the E-ARC.

*I received an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for the free poetry collection.*

A nice poetry collection with a wide range of poems about animals. I especially enjoyed the inclusion of Indigenous voices in this collection. The illustrations were not really my cup of tea and I found a lot of the poems boring, but reading them one after another is also not the right approach. Overall nice.

Thank you NetGalley, and the author for providing me with an ARC of this book.

Ce livre est graphiquement très beau, les illustrations sont sublimes. Pour les amateurs de poésie moderne, vous trouverez certainement votre bonheur dans ce recueil aux poèmes variés, parfois durs, parfois doux où la beauté comme la réalité - dans toutes ses facettes - du monde d'animal est relatée.
A titre personnel, si le contenu est intéressant et souvent très touchant, la forme de poésie ne m'a pas correspond mais cela reste un état de fait très personnel. Je vous recommande complètement ce recueil si vous aimez l'écriture poétique, les poèmes longs et que le règne animal vous passionne.

Este libro tiene una premisa bastante amplia con una variedad de autores y estilos representados. Muchos de los poemas eran apreciaciones de animales salvajes o de la naturaleza en un sentido más amplio, algunos eran estudios cercanos de animales de compañía queridos. Algunos de los poemas eran simplemente hermosos, otros inquietantes, algunos tristes. Las historias que cuentan son tanto sombrías como esperanzadoras. También disfruté las ilustraciones y las introducciones a cada agrupación de poemas.

In The Gift of Animals, editor Alison Hawthorne Deming curates a selection of poems that highlight our deep and enduring connection with animals. Deming shares poems from a range of poetic voices, old and new. She organizes the collection into sections with themes ranging from animal companionship, to praise of animals, and more. At the beginning of each section, Deming introduces and reflects on the theme, then offers an ancient poem from a different world tradition, showing how central animals have been, not just to this culture or that, but to all of humankind.

The Gift of Animals is a gem and would make a wonderful gift, either for a poetry lover or an animal lover looking for a friendly entry into poetry. It's also the poetry class I wish I could have taken in college. What an engaging concept to focus on an appealing universal theme and look at how a broad range of poetic voices and traditions approach it. I found something to love in almost every poem in the collection, but there were some definite standouts for me. I especially loved Linda Pastan's playful "The Art of the Dog," which considers how often dogs appear as peripheral subjects in paintings. Mark Doty's "Little Mammoth" had me on the verge of tears for a baby animal that died forty thousand years ago. And RK Fauth's "Playing With Bees" indirectly paints a stark environmental picture by cataloging all the metaphorical possibilities that would disappear without bees. I'm also looking forward to reading more from poets I discovered through this collection, including sam sax, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, and Deming herself.

My thanks to NetGalley and Storey Publishing for providing me with a review copy of The Gift of Animals, which is scheduled for release in April 2025.

A beautiful collection of poems celebrating the Earth's most amazing creatures—animals. The poems are grouped into seven sections: Praise, Lament, Companionship, Fear and Vulnerability, the Least Among Us, and the Sacred, which really enhances the overall reading experience.

Some of my favorites include:
♥ Elephants by Indran Amirthanayagam
♥ The Last Safe Habitat by Craig Santos Perez
♥ from Nightsong by Ever Jones
♥ A Sonnet at the Edge of the Reef by Craig Santos Perez
♥ Characteristics of Life by Camille Dungy
♥ Playing with Bees by RK Fauth

I was especially happy to discover Craig Santos Perez through this collection—definitely planning to read more of his work! The illustrations were also lovely and comforting, like a warm hug. I'd love to have a physical copy and highly recommend this to any animal lover!

I absolutely loved the cover of this book. However, for me, the contents did not match the serenity of the cover. I found some poems much too wordy, some were just sad without much feeling, some just left me wondering why. It was just work to continue to read this book. I found none of the beauty and grace that I saw on the cover within the book. I give it two stars for the cover. I thank NetGalley and Storey Publishing for the advance read.

This collection, The Gift of Animals, is a beautiful meditation on the relationship between humans and animals, featuring poems by well-known (mostly) contemporary poets such as Rita Dove, Joy Harjo, Ada Limón, and many others. The book explores how these relationships shape our lives and how human lives and ways of living have shaped the natural world around us. It's a poignant and thought-provoking collection that will resonate with animal lovers and poetry enthusiasts. I found it to be a truly grounding and thought-provoking read--of course, there are some poems I would have expected to see here that weren't included--but it leans very much toward the contemporary. I wasn't the biggest fan of the illustration style, to be honest, but the poetry choices had alot of variety and meaning and even introduced me to a few new voices.
4.5/5

This book has a somewhat far reaching premise with a variety of authors and styles represented. Many of the poems were appreciations of wild animals or nature in a broader sense, some were close studies of beloved companion animals. Some of the poems were just beautiful, some chilling, some sad. The stories they tell are both grim and hopeful. I also enjoyed the illustrations and lead-ins to each grouping of poems.

I mean it's nice, but the majority of the poems did nothing for me. They felt appreciative, but there was no further deeper emotion or meaning behind most of them, a surprising lack of metaphors or symbolism