A Bear Approaches from the Sky

This second poetry collection by Abby Chew explores what it means to live as that animal called "human," and how to reemerge from the isolating burrow of personal and family history. A Bear Approaches from the Sky pulls the reader into a family saga that becomes archetypal in its occupation of loneliness. At the same time, the poems generate connection to our shared life on this planet and our many diverse and struggling families of origin.

A Bear Approaches from the Sky is intended for a general adult readership.

Says Emily Wilson: "With acute, earth-bound diction and wind-stained tones, Abby Chew's poems evoke a sensory world that is not quite human, one that feels remnant of our more richly animal past, when we were 'never without the hunting teeth.' Her composite, self-possessed voices--half man, half coyote; half crow, half bear--lope and swoop their waste spaces, smelling the air, catching the scents of prey and danger. Their collective act is to subtly and miraculously mark, and transform, the distance between us and our broader relations, seeking and recovering 'what it is that holds us all, the stranglehold / of home, of loneliness, of love.'"

Broc Rossell adds, "Forget the past. History is the story of the present, and A Bear Approaches from the Sky is a creation myth of our present, of our presence in the world. Abby Chew, I see your Bear, I see Coyote and Oolie, I see tricksters mingling with Einstein and Mother and winter coat pockets full of tobacco dreams, but this isn't a dream: this is the story that happens today, so full of heart I might not make it through. The landscape is incredible--I'm recognizing things I've never seen before, under a patina of fossilized sunlight. I love this book for the way it roughs me up, almost as much as it loves me back. It gives me courage, and dignity. It's our friend."