Moira Magneson's stunning first full-length poetry collection, In the Eye of the Elephant, is a constellation of lyric, narrative, and experimental poems whose subjects are the wild and the creatures that inhabit that space.
Rooted primarily in a Western landscape and infused with Buddhist notions of interconnection and impermanence, the book is divided into three parts, with the first exploring our paradoxical relationship to animals: our sometimes unbearable yearning to merge with their mystery alongside our inclination, conscious or not, to destroy them. The book then shifts its gaze to poems that spotlight human precarity, our frailties and shortcomings. In the final section, the aperture widens, revealing a more inclusive depth of field, while moving toward a growing acceptance of the dark and bright and coming to terms with the beautiful ruin of our imperfect world.
Over the years, Moira Magneson has worked as a river guide, artist's model, truck driver, television writer, editor, and community college writing instructor. A Northern California native, she lives in the Sierra foothills where she has spearheaded many art actions and initiatives, including El Dorado County's Poetry Out Loud Competition, Veterans' Voices, Barbaric Yawp, and Black Lives: An American Overture. In 2024, she was the resident poet for ForestSong, a community arts project exploring solastalgia, biophilia, and resilience in the face of wildfire devastation. Magneson is the author of A River Called Home: A River Fable, an illustrated novella (Toad Road Press, 2024). In the Eye of the Elephant is her first full-length collection of poems.
