An ark for the next millennium

Jose Emilio Pacheco, the most talented poet of his generation, often writes poems in which animals act as his alter ego, conveying his perceptions - sometimes comic, often tragic - of the human condition. His Album de zoologia, of which this is the English version, gives voice to myriad creatures who inhabit land, sea, air, and even (mythically) fire. Through their perceptions, the poet challenges much of what is dark in the human psyche - cruelty toward ourselves and other life forms, destruction of the fragile world that all living creatures share.