Tom Cull's debut collection is equal parts zoo, fun-house, and curio cabinet. A mouthy badger tells off a search committee, a family of beavers conspire to commit murder, a celebrity seal slips his cage, and a flock of seabirds pay a visit to Ripley's Aquarium. In these poems, human and animal spaces overlap, often marking moments of transgression, rebellion, escape, and capture. The rural logic of everyday violence stands in relief to urban hyper-spectacles of animal incursion. Home and habitat are flooded with invasive species, cute animals videos, and rising tides.Cull's lyricism ranges from the intimate to the mythopoeic; speaking in the language of mimicry, ventriloquism, tall tale, and zinger. Within this stunning debut, animals collide, conspire, and transform, creeping through the narrative spaces of these poems and intimating apocalypse as both end and beginning

Tom Cull has published a collection of poetry, Bad Animals (2018), and two chapbooks, What the Badger Said (2013) and Keep Your Distance (2021, co-written with Kerry Manders). His work has appeared in This Magazine, The Dalhousie Review, The Rusty Toque, Long Con Magazine, The Windsor Review, The New Quarterly, and The Goose. Cull was poet laureate for the city of London, ON, from 2016–18. He is the director of Antler River Rally (ARR), a grass roots environmental group he co-founded in 2012 with his partner Miriam Love. He works at the Upper Thames Conservation Authority and teaches creative writing at Western University. Born and raised in Huron County, ON, he currently resides in London on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, Lunaapéewak and Chonnonton Nations.

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