Doggerel

Book excerpt: From Chaucer to Billy Collins and from basset hounds to brindle bull terriers, Doggerel presents a robust brood of the most charming verse tributes ever offered to our beloved canine companions. The rich and assorted cadences of some of the most distinguished poets across the centuries ring out from these pages–from Spenser, Shakespeare, and Pope to Merrill, Merwin, and Muldoon–celebrating pooches of every pedigree and persuasion. Here is Margaret Cavendish’s barking chorus of beagles on the hunt; Elizabeth Bishop’s “Pink Dog” alongside Robyn Selman’s “My Dog is Named for Elizabeth Bishop”; Charles Baxter’s villanelle “Dog Kibble,” whose dog-narrator decides that “Life isn’t meaningless because there’s food”; and the desultory charms of Jane Kenyon’s unleashed dog, nuzzling about on a drizzly afternoon. From lazy dogs curled up by the fireplace to audacious hounds howling at the moon, from mutts to purebreds, puppies to old dogs, Doggerel is an irresistible gathering of fast and faithful friends.