Personhood

At the edges of history, territories, species, and theories, arbitrary lines mark us, mapping the living and the dead. Where animals overlap or get tangled in the lines, we beg the question. Where the lines fall apart, we jump to simple answers, and land in deadly consequences.      Whether exploring refugee parrots, indentured elephants, the revolving absurdity of the human role in the invasive species crisis, or the pathetic fallacy, Personhood reveals that the unmistakable problem remaining between humans and our nonhuman relatives is one of language. Thalia Field's bold and engaging new work focuses a wide lens on how power justifies itself at the extremes, where violence and story attempt to quell the complexity of a shared planet. In this brilliant study of the irrational, Personhood combines and repositions the real experience of animal lives as the poetic test for how we can move beyond our delusions of some special status. Crossing genres of poetry, essay, drama, and fiction, Field offers us an enthralling, heartbreaking look at the fragility of our natural world and the species that occupy it.