“But my courage is roaring like the sound of the sun
‘Cause it’s vain about its mane and will reveal
I’m an animal, you’re an animal too.” Neko Case, “I‘m an Animal”
“Beat drums! Beat drums!” Animal, from The Muppet Show
Roar, peep, hiss! This is a call for submissions for the Animal Issue! Send your poems that go wild! Or domesticated. Eulogize beloved pets or go on about how you wanna be someone’s dog. Submit poems about animal instincts and animal desires. Anthropomorphize until your heart’s content. I bet you have feelings about famous animals and I want poetry about Benji, or King Kong or animated chipmunks. I want your animal energies and animalistic tendencies and to know what the soft animal of your body is really up to. I want to see all the poems about peoples’ favourite fauna, from land, air or sea! Be funny, be fun, be sad, be sentimental. This issue is about the animals of the world and the animal in us all.
Dina Del Bucchia is an otter and dress enthusiast and the author of four collections of poetry, Coping with Emotions and Otters (Talonbooks, 2013), Blind Items (Insomniac Press, 2014), Rom Com (Talonbooks, 2015), written with Daniel Zomparelli and It’s a Big Deal! (Talonbooks 2019). She also hosts Can’t Lit, a podcast on Canadian literature and culture, with Jen Sookfong Lee. Her short story, “Under the ‘I’,” was a finalist for the Writers’ Trust RBC Bronwen Wallace Award in 2012 and her first collection of short stories, Don’t Tell Me What to Do, was published in fall 2017 with Arsenal Pulp Press. She was a senior editor of Poetry Is Dead magazine and is the Artistic Director of the Real Vancouver Writers’ Series and on the editorial board of fine. press. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, where she currently is an instructor. Her most recent work is the digital chapbook Douche Process (Model Press, 2021). You can, sort of, find out more about her at dinadelbucchia.com.