This big, beautiful coffee table book’s purpose is to entertain and to educate about living in harmony with nature, specifically alligators, rather than being scientific. The content is mainly true, sometimes whimsical, creative writing (prose and poetry) about alligators, in response to living by and swimming in a rural Florida lake for three decades.
She Swims with Alligators employs a wide vocabulary and gruesome, uncensored descriptions of raw predation, and therefore, is a book for mature readers. This 40-ounce classic hardback with dust jacket is a book to display proudly, read aloud or listen to the audio, discuss and share. Readers and listeners will be captivated by inspiring ‘Aha!’ ‘Gasp!’ and ‘Listen to This!’ moments.
The book’s 229-page 11″ x 8.5″ horizontal layout is the ideal shape for 124 large color photos of alligators in their natural environments. Twenty-eight nature photographers contributed their best shots to make this publication a fascinating page-turner.
She Swims with Alligators is a book to own, an unusual ‘gift’ book, a Florida souvenir, and an informative tool for Florida residents to expand understanding of our alligator neighbors.
Entertaining, elucidating, and mystical poems are written in many veins and moods, through various types of poetry, from sonnets and blank verse to limericks and light-hearted innovations. Both humor and seriousness are underpinned by environmental awareness and a deep appreciation of the spirit of nature.
The poems and prose sections cover a plethora of incidents and interactions with wildlife at an agrestic Florida lake and beyond. From fanciful, to harrowing, to serene, the content escorts the reader through a range of emotions and reactions, sparked by brutal truths of an apex predator with big teeth and small brains. These pages may induce laughter, admiration, shock, disgust, and contemplation, all the while engaging the reader in a unique style intended to invoke full appreciation of the spectrum of nature – from the savage to the sublime.
CHAPTERS
Chapter One
Close Encounters
Prose and poetry about experiences with alligators of Beauty Lake
Chapter Two
Alligator Attacks
Poems written in response to newspaper articles: True to the ‘facts,’ shocking, gory, or sad
Chapter Three
What’s for Supper?
Facts about alligator appetites and poems about eating: mostly fun rhythms accompanied by little-known information
Chapter Four
Gators Talk Back
Getting in the alligators’ psyche, imagining what they would say about situations in their lives ~ funny or creepy to humans
Chapter Five
Dating and Mating
Poems about the attraction, seduction, mating, nesting and hatching, including ‘Swamp Sex Sonnet Sequence’!
Chapter Six
Listen to This!
Advice and information to help people understand the value of alligators, as well as how to stay safe near Florida waters
Chapter Seven
Environmental Consciousness
Poems to raise awareness of local water and wildlife issues including Bartram and Ocklawaha poems, and “Diminishing Returns” about the ways natural rivers have been changed in the past two centuries
Chapter Eight
Reflections
Contemplating natural beauty, and a world view different from the contemporary norm
Chapter Nine
Diving Deeper
Poetic musings while sitting by the lake about nature, meditation, contentment and awakening
Chapter Ten
Tail End
Words and pictures bringing the book to closure
Still Swimming!
