Summary

The three poems selected from The Truro Bear and Other Adventures focus on animals. The first poem, “The Other Kingdoms,” describes types of life besides human life. Oliver identifies these as the the “kingdoms” of the trees, of the snow, and of the animals, to which most of the lines are devoted. In the second, “The Gift,” the ocean is described as if it, too, were an animal, and then focuses in on a description of a seashell which once housed a creature. And in the third and final poem of this section, “Coyote In The Dark, Coyotes Remembered,” Oliver’s speaker describes an encounter with a coyote, and a second, remembered encounter with two women, human hikers, whom the speaker describes as if they, too, are wildlife.

The second book of this section, Red Bird...