I’m not actually that interested in wildlife or having encounters with wild animals. I am interested in how language constructs nature and how the stories we tell about nature — whether this be in the vein of “frontier gothic” or the ol’ chestnut — create patterns of meaning in which we position ourselves as humans in relationship to the wild. I’m not sure exactly what this position is. I think it shifts quite a bit according to our purposes in telling stories — the first poem of Bear Stories, let’s say, in comparison with one of the later poems is a good example of what I mean about shifting positions.

~ J’Lyn Chapman @ Bookslut