“In the first poem, Kimberly Ann Priest evokes a moment of ‘dismantled vigilance-nothing encroaching, nothing to hunt,’ and this becomes the quest of these stunning poems as the speaker moves through the effects of abuse and homelessness into a world free of predation. The voice in this book is strong, astute, and vulnerable as the poet reclaims her history and its fragmented beauty alongside the story of a wolf, her totem creature. Priest writes with a keen eye and great musical dexterity, creating a book that is both compelling and crucial.”-Betsy Sholl, Maine poet laureate emeritus and author of As If a Song Could Save You
“Of wolves and shells, holy howls and spirals, does Kimberly Ann Priest weave her sacred tapestry of lyrical outpouring; in one poem she writes ‘because I feel like thunder often, dance like snow; because I am living.’ And her poems are so fiercely alive and soaring and plunging on the page that it both hurts and fills one up to read them. Hers is a startling new voice in American poetry that can never be forgotten.”-Robert Vivian, author of All I Feel Is Rivers
“Wolves in Shells is a powerful collection that details what it means to be a woman in the twenty-first century. In it, Kimberly Ann Priest documents a life of resilience after homelessness, abuse, intergenerational trauma, and witnessing the violence of America. Drawing from her cross-country travels and emotional connections to wildlife-particularly the wolves of Yellowstone National Park-Priest illustrates, in captivating detail, the strength of an individual woman who is both hunted and too often harmed but who ultimately ‘become[s] her own pack’ to ‘survive.’”-Sunni Brown Wilkinson, author of Rodeo, winner of the 2024 Donald Justice Poetry Prize
“Wolves in Shells by Kimberly Ann Priest is a piercing rebuke of ‘our dependency on machinery/ that harms us.’ That machinery is patriarchy, marriage, and gender inequality. A blistering chronicle of a life lost-children, home, health-and regained. Muriel Rukeyser asked, ‘What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?/ The world would split open.’ Each of these poems moves with the honesty of an ax.”-TomÁs Q. MorÍn, author of Let Me Count the Ways: A Memoir
