National Animal, Derek Webster's second book of poetry, inhabits a wider public space than his acclaimed debut Mockingbird. In poems that extend beyond the biographical toward the political, Webster's quiet, sharp-eyed narrator-a man "tripping / my way forward, trying to lead my own life"-watches history being erased in favour of more socially palatable ideas and comforting self-portraits. Uncompromising and substantial, National Animal explores our "civic moment" where "birds sing oblivion / estranged from all things," and meditates, in a final image-rich sequence, on our place in a science-based cosmos.

Born in Richmond, Virginia, Derek Webster grew up in Beijing, Toronto and London. He received an MFA in Poetry from Washington University in St. Louis, where he studied with Carl Phillips, Erin Belieu and Yusef Komunyakaa. His poetry and prose have appeared in The Fiddlehead, The Malahat Review, The Walrus, and Boston Review. The founding editor of Maisonneuve magazine, he lives in Montreal.

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