The observing ape : poems

The poems in The Observing Ape are arranged into three chapters: "Neighbors," "Making," and "Strangers." At their core, these poems trace the ways in which speakers internalize the exterior world. Although no single narrative unifies the collection, each poem records the consciousness of a speaker as the interior and the exterior intersect. Through persona poems and intensely perceived images, the collection strives to understand how humans learn, observe, and imagine. However, forays into visual art, primatology, and voyeurism color the poems with cultural referents, and these referents infuse the poems with a quirky reverence for a world that stretches beyond a strictly linguistic or personal experience.