Zoo at Night

Susan Gubernat is a professor of English at California State University, East Bay. She is the author of Flesh, winner of the Marianne Moore Poetry Prize, and the chapbook Analog House. An opera librettist, her major work, Korczak’s Orphans, in collaboration with composer Adam Silverman, has been performed in a number of venues. She lives in Oakland, California.

• AcknowledgmentsIEtruscansWedding CookiesThe Right Hand of GoltziusI Was in Gym Class When Cronkite Said They’d Shot HimSharing a Birthday with Mata HariAtlantic CitySmart EnoughThe RooseveltChristmas FiresWinter CoatsAfter the AbortionShaggy ParasolIIAnalog House: A Cabinet of CuriositiesThe SingerEaster BreadHadesDobermanMeat GrinderPiano Bench13th FairyWashboardClotheslineFeather DusterSpirit LevelPaint-by-NumberNetNettingHats, Purses, GlovesVestibuleDeliberate HappinessPhoto on PonyUnderwood in FlamesIIIThe Zoo at Night (1)Aphasia of the MoonSick ChildFiliaPoster ChildrenLa SebastianaPortrait at FourteenGround TimeNo WarriorThe CollectiveDeathbed ProofDay LiliesIVThe Zoo at Night (2)The Entrance of BeautyYellow SweaterToo SoonOn a Scale OfFonderMy Sister and I Are Having the Same DreamReading Loop: The Sibyl at CumaeMating DancePreyEclipseThe Buddhas of BamiyanOur RoadV“Report a Problem with This Poem”“Beautiful Contrivances” in the Sex Life of OrchidsFumÉe d’Ambre GrisThe Fascicles of Emily DickinsonMy Mother in the Eye of the StormBlue ToothGround NoteNear Capitol Reef, UtahPears in WinterNotes

“‘Beauty is always strange,’ says Baudelaire, and in Susan Gubernat’s brilliant The Zoo at Night, we have a grand tour of the many ways that the world, arriving directly under our noses, can remain, everlastingly, embodied and mysterious.”-Mark Svenvold, author of Empire Burlesque and Big Weather“For those of us who believe in words-their merit as instruments of inquiry, their aptitude for beauty, their power of linking soul to soul-these are difficult times. Open these pages, and find your hope restored. Susan Gubernat’s are poems of meticulous craftsmanship, luminous apprehension, and unfailing heart. I’m grateful beyond measure for this book.”-Linda Gregerson, author of Magnetic North, finalist for the National Book Award