Cartographies of Scale (and Wing)

Anca Vlasopolos' magnificent collection of poetry is a meditation on map-making and on migration, which pays homage to two scientists, Gerardus Mercator and Nathaniel Bowditch, whose work was enormously useful but unwittingly helped lead to conquest, decimation, and in some cases extinction of native habitats, peoples, and non-human life. These poems celebrate life that often passes unnoticed (intertidal creatures, migrating and "common" birds, amphibians, reptiles, non-charismatic mammals, and disregarded humans), advocate for its worth, habitats, and right to existence.