JUMP TO A LIST OF POEMS ABOUT ENCOUNTERS WITH WILD ANIMALS
Lucille Clifton’s “telling our stories” found me during a particularly rough stretch this spring. (I include a link to the poem below.) I was feeling haunted by some troubling flashbacks, and when I read, “the fox came every evening to my door” (and the lines that follow), I related immediately to Clifton’s fear and avoidance.
I also understood the depth of her connection to the fox. Dare I say, I understood it as a relationship with the fox… and with the “terrible stories” it — and the poet watching it — could tell. I felt deep resonance with the poem, and it spurred an obsession with fox imagery. I even had a close encounter this summer with a wild fox which had claimed a busy Cape Cod beach town as her hunting ground.
The Cape Cod fox startled me and I shooed her away, but normally when encountering wild life, I’m the sort of person who believes I’m having a shared moment with the creature. I even introduce myself to toads and newts. “I’m a human,” I say, and what I mean is I hold myself in high regard as the type of human an animal might like to know and befriend. When I hold the gaze of a deer or bird or, yes, a fox, I experience a true connection.
Intellectually, that connection is hogwash, of course. But spiritually? I’m a believer.
So when I read “Driving to Santa Fe” by Paisley Rekdal in a writing workshop from Two Sylvias Press (through their “Weekly Muse” Substack), I knew I needed to collect poems about wild animal encounters. The speaker in Rekdal’s poem (linked below) comes upon a lynx crossing the road. Time slows, creating space for the speaker to understand what it means to be alive and to be humbled by it.
That writing workshop was led by Mark Doty, and when introducing him, Kelli Russell Agodon shared that Mary Oliver had described Mark’s work as “the furnace of meaning at the heart of the human story.” 😍 Isn’t that lovely?! For me, it’s also an apt way to think about the subject of this list of poems. The encounters they capture feed the furnace of meaning at the heart of what it means to be a living creature on planet Earth.
If that’s how it happens for you, too, to be in the presence of wild animals, I’d love to hear about your encounters — and connections — with wild things. I will gobble up all of your comments on this subject!
As I introduce the list, I want to be clear that it does not include light verse or nursery rhymes. It also doesn’t include poems that simply describe or embody wild animals. I’m focused exclusively here on encounters with creatures (living or dead) that stop time and transform the speaker of the poem.
Examples of Poems About Encounters With Wild Animals
- telling our stories by Lucille Clifton (the second poem on the page)
- A Display of Mackerel by Mark Doty
- Deer, 6:00 AM by Sarah Getty
- Flamingos by Gessica Sakamoto Martini
- Birdcall by Alicia Suskin Ostriker
- Driving to Santa Fe by Paisley Rekdal
- Traveling through the Dark by William E. Stafford
- Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens
- Octopus on a Sea Dock by Kathryn Winograd
HONORABLE MENTIONS
I typically wait to publish poetry resources and lists until I have 20 or more poems, but this topic is being insistent. It won’t let me go. And I do think there’s something in the air. I don’t normally add bonus poems/honorable mentions to the list (either a poem fits or it doesn’t), but current events are tugging on me to add two popular stunners.
On the passing of Wendell Berry in late August, here’s “The Peace of Wild Things:”
And on the heels of watching the newly released Mary Oliver documentary, “Saved by the Beauty of the World,” here’s “Wild Geese:”
Neither of these is about a specific encounter, but both are incredibly moving and capture the spirit of my list. And it seems the universe wants them to be part of this conversation.
I’d love to expand this collection of poems about wild animal encounters. Got a fave that I’ve missed? Let me know, and I’ll take a look. Also, be sure to check out other popular lists published at this blog:
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