ZZOO, MA|DE

MA|DE

Poetry
ISBN-13: 978-1-990293-85-6
$21.95 CDN / $21.95 US | Trade Paperback
February 2025

At a time when binaristic and hierarchical relations are being readily interrogated, MA|DE — a unity of two voices fused into a single, poetic third — takes up a critique of the human-animal divide in their full-length debut, ZZOO. From the depths of the oceans to the outer reaches of the sky, a menagerie of species trade off time in the limelight, none of them solely occupying the central space on the global stage. MA|DE’s collaborative practice foregrounds interdependence, outward focus, shared spaces and non-hierarchical thinking, all of which emerge allegorically in interzonal poems that are as richly realized as they are formally eclectic. This wild-blooded collection turns conventional exhibitionism on its head, treating humans and animals as equal subjects of art, science and selfhood. ZZOO is a bestiary for the modern world.

Praise for ZZOO:

“ZZOO cuts through the cultures and beliefs humans have spun around animals to create rare poetic visions, both dark and fresh, exhilarating and sharp.”— Rachel Poliquin, author of The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing

“MA|DE pulls off the beautiful “sugarwhip” of collaboration: moebius-strip-like, poems that are two-sided and also one, and vice versa. This voice of voices is deindividuated. The ‘I’ becomes a ‘We.’ As they write, “When the clouds took human / shape, we felt indivisible.” This whimsical poetic menagerie hums with variety: of sound, form, animals. Perhaps you can’t step in the same river twice, but in ZZOO, two step in simultaneously.”— Gary Barwin & Tom Prime, authors of Bird Arsonist and A Cemetery for Holes

“Most impressive throughout ZZOO is MA|DE’s extraordinary attention to detail, and their almost bibliophilic attention to the composition of each poem. Close readers will feel the heart imbued within the writing, the passion behind the work’s creation, and the genuine, contagious belief in the message. It seems that we live in a culture that is increasingly removing itself from natural experience, and ZZOO is a refreshing step back, away from—or perhaps across—the divide. It is fresh, authentic, genuine, and a truly deep piece of work that warrants attention and admiration; it fences in a small but powerful world that poetry lovers will want to revisit again and again to observe language on display in an artful facsimile of its natural habitat.” — Matt Boylan, THE AMPERSAND REVIEW

“… an exciting, stimulating read, full of poems as thoughtful as they are beautiful. Poetry like this is much like a river — something that becomes different, and makes you different, every time you plunge in.”— Jeremy Colangelo, THE /TƐMZ/ REVIEW

“What I love about ZZOO is that encapsulates the now with vivid, original and often mind-blowing artistic expressions, urging us to reconsider, to look, to see, to think boldly, to embrace the thinning differentiation between us and animals, as we self-mutate away from the human and into an unknown genre.”— Lisa de Nikolits, A TURN OF PHRASE

“Innovative, experimental, whimsical, mysterious.”— Terri Favro, author of The Sisters Sputnik and Cold City

“There is a bounce and clatter, but one of a density of lyric, one that works to interrogate relations and interrelations, offering a collaborative language between and across language, sparking a binary through a binary, and where they might possibly connect. The poems are layered, and sharp …”— rob mclennan, on ROBMCLENNAN.BLOGSPOT.COM

“Every detail of ZZOO feels like it’s been carefully and meticulously thought out…when you pick up a book by MA|DE, you’re not just picking up poetry. You’re being folded into a universe.”— Michael Russell, author of Gallery of Heartache and Grindr Opera

“… MA|DE train Kingdom Animalia to stutter and glitch. Jellyfish, tardigrades and wolves find equal footing; anorexia, condominiums and Trash Mountain take on a brittle, pulsing life of their own.”— Bryce Warnes,  THE PAMPHLETEER