Full-Time Mammal

Rennie Ament,Rennie Ament
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
April 30 2026
EAN: 9781685970710
ISBN: 1685970710
Synopsis:

In Full-Time Mammal, perception becomes both subject and site of excavation. Rennie Ament wrestles with what it means to be awake and aware in a disorienting world. How are you supposed to know what you don't know? As ancient defense mechanisms fail, the brain must be retrained, and poetry becomes a divination tool, a game, a portal, a potential weapon, a way through fog.

Survival requires becoming a poet-cum-scientist. Drool becomes data. Ants carry thoughts to rot beneath earth. Animals, plants, and objects are not symbols but companionate presences. This collection feels its way through the failure of imagination at the heart of preordained systems, turning to the natural world not for refuge, but reinvention.