Black Dog Happy

BLACK DOG HAPPY: A BOOK FOR THE ANIMAL IN ALL OF US Black Dog Happy contains poems celebrating plants, animals and their protectors as well as protesting against those who would do violence to them. Because I grew up in Parma, Ohio, and went to school in Cleveland, my first encounter with wild animals was predictably, the Cleveland Zoo. Several Dog poems recall Zoo days with my mother, mostly joyful, but not without ambivalence about the institution of the Zoo. A Parma poem describes suburban boys defying death while climbing billboards in Parma; a Cleveland poem recalls days at old Euclid Beach amusement park with my father, as close to adventure as typical suburban children get. Other verses pay homage to environmental protectors inspired by walking tours through Cherokee country and tribal peoples who defeated Custer at Greasy Grass (Little-Big Horn). Similarly, "The Day Romero Died," pays tribute to a protector from South of the Border. Sequenced poems conflate categories of human and non-human: "Life in Captivity: Dolphins" is followed by "Life in Captivity: Husband and Wife." For these reasons, I confidently claim that this is a book for the animal in all of us.