The Animal Gospels is a collection of lyric-narrative poems that explore faith, identity, loss, racism, the transience of being, and coming of age in the South at the end of the 20th century. Many of the poems tap into the mythic and totemic power of animals in an attempt to bridge the gap between the past and the present, remembering and forgetting, personal history and public history. The book as a whole is shaped by an abiding faith in story, song, and the redemptive power of memory and imagination.