Goatsong by Phoebe Giannisi, trans. Brian Sneeden
Poetry Book Society Translation Choice Winter 2025 illness full of life and thought

full of life and thought

Bolivia and El Salvador

that Bear of Very Little Brain

Carl Phillips's Scattered Snows

in a compelling sequence about a totem animal

Goatsong by Phoebe Giannisi, trans. Brian Sneeden<br><b>Poetry Book Society Translation Choice Winter 2025</b> illness full of life and thoughtPublished 6th November 2025. The ancient Greek word for tragedy () is a compound of goat () and song ( ). In Phoebe Giannisi's Goatsong, the seam that connects human and animal, myths and history, is the body. In Giannisis language, life obeys myth. A man places a screaming cicada in his mouth, reminding us of a scene from Platos Phaedrus, where Socrates claims cicadas to have been humans who became entranced by the invention of singing, and didnt