Becker celebrates the interconnectedness of creatures and places-never losing sight that much will turn out precarious, illusory, provisional. These poems speak, in ardent voices, about our affinities: an articulate, black bear mourns habitat loss; a frail man and failing dog become one; a scientist and her African grey parrot research language acquisition for thirty years. Ecologies interlace, as when a troubled family "e;sacrifices one member,/ as plants surrender leaves in times of drought."e; Becker responds with rage and wit to corporate excess and intractable geo-politics. Love and friendship empower in wry narratives, though time "e;mows"e; down our days, though we may never escape "e;original cruelties."e; Tragedies permeating our enmeshed, global identities haunt the book: the massacre of gay youth in Orlando; the terrors facing Cambodian teenagers working fishing boats. Wise, capacious, by turns unsettling and joyous, The Black Bear Inside Me incorporates histories and losses into a luminous present.

Becker celebrates the interconnectedness of creatures and places-never losing sight that much will turn out precarious, illusory, provisional. These poems speak, in ardent voices, about our affinities: an articulate, black bear mourns habitat loss; a frail man and failing dog become one; a scientist and her African grey parrot research language acquisition for thirty years. Ecologies interlace, as when a troubled family "e;sacrifices one member,/ as plants surrender leaves in times of drought."e; Becker responds with rage and wit to corporate excess and intractable geo-politics. Love and friendship empower in wry narratives, though time "e;mows"e; down our days, though we may never escape "e;original cruelties."e; Tragedies permeating our enmeshed, global identities haunt the book: the massacre of gay youth in Orlando; the terrors facing Cambodian teenagers working fishing boats. Wise, capacious, by turns unsettling and joyous, The Black Bear Inside Me incorporates histories and losses into a luminous present.