“In the compassionate, playful, fable-like poems of The Animals of My Earth School, Mildred Kiconco Barya awakens us to the vividly singing, fully alive, non-human communities surrounding us. These poems demonstrate poetry’s unique ability to prick us from our self-involved numbness and awaken us to wonder. Three is great solace, tenderness, and innocence here; the kind of innocence capable of apprehending the creatures of the world, and thus the world itself, afresh. Like a literary Noah’s ark song, The Animals of My Earth School provided a place where all may dance and thrive. These poems provide pleasure and a glimmer of hope” Michael Hettich, The Mica Mine