WINNER OF THE NATIONAL POETRY SERIES, Kira Tucker's Wildest rethinks the American Dream as a series of ecological nightmares and the untold stories buried within. These unflinching lyrics bear witness to the raging wildfires, literal and figurative, of social injustice-from the haunting origins of Lake Lanier to the human rights crisis converging at this nation's borders and beyond. Rooted in the Delta South, Wildest is a sojourn through geographies of loss and hope-from the diasporic flora of the Puerto Rican rainforest, to the microplastics clouding Mt. Fuji, to the iridescent beauty of Gulf Coast oil spills, and more. Investigating turn-of-the-century dream science alongside apocalyptic climate data, this collection insists on a reclamation of wildness. Each poem reaches-through personal memory, archives of public life, and seeds of possibility-toward a richer understanding of our collective unconscious. Above all, this striking debut asks: how might we dream, grieve, and make meaning at this global tipping point?
