Decline of the Animal Kingdom

Clarke’s mischievous, fabulist debut collection blurs the lines between the literal and allegorical as she employs a lens of anthropomorphism, an edge of misanthropy, and the slow unravelling of personae into disparate states evoking something between grace and madness. The stark, spare language of her poetry, which utilizes a variety of forms, belies its complexity. Layers within layers peel back in slow, substantial folds. Such layering is recognizably at work in the dissolution of the self into animal association, as in “Materials for a Memoir on Animal Locomotion,” “Extinction,” and “Carnivora.” It is also at work in the ongoing absurdist narratives of anthropomorphized behavior among office drones. The layering grows deeper and more intricate as the book freewheels through themes of growth, birth, and decay, all dissecting an ever-present duality of the fear of becoming and the embracing of the dissection itself. There is a rather vicious sense of play, which is clear from her poems’ titles, including “If I Were a Killer Whale,” “Self-Evaluation for Employee #M100656984,” and “Decoherence.” Clarke’s successful balancing of calculated loathing and euphoria makes for a fierce piece of performance art. [em](Oct.) [/em]