Wildest

This National Poetry Series–winning debut collection asks how we can make meaning in our lives during a time of ecological crisis and rampant social injustice

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL POETRY SERIES, Kira Tucker’s Wildest rethinks the American Dream as a series of ecological nightmares and the untold stories buried within. These unflinching lyrics bear witness to the raging wildfires, literal and figurative, of social injustice—from the haunting origins of Lake Lanier to the human rights crisis converging at this nation’s borders and beyond.

Rooted in the Delta South, Wildest is a sojourn through geographies of loss and hope—from the diasporic flora of the Puerto Rican rainforest, to the microplastics clouding Mt. Fuji, to the iridescent beauty of Gulf Coast oil spills, and more. Investigating turn-of-the-century dream science alongside apocalyptic climate data, this collection insists on a reclamation of wildness. Each poem reaches—through personal memory, archives of public life, and seeds of possibility—toward a richer understanding of our collective unconscious.

Above all, this striking debut asks: how might we dream, grieve, and make meaning at this global tipping point?