Mama Amazonica is set in a psychiatric ward and in the Amazon rainforest, an asylum for animals on the brink of extinction. It reveals the story of Pascale Petit's mentally ill mother and the consequences of abuse. The mother transforms into a giant Victoria amazonica waterlily, and a bestiary of untameable creatures - a jaguar girl, a wolverine, a hummingbird - as she marries her rapist and gives birth to his children. From heartbreaking trauma, there emerge luxuriant and tender portraits of a woman battling for survival, in poems that echo the plight of others under duress, and of our companion species. Petit does not flinch from the violence but offers hope by celebrating the beauty of the wild, whether in the mind or the natural world. Mama Amazonica is Pascale Petit's seventh collection, and her first from Bloodaxe. Four of Pascale Petit's previous six collections have been shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Winner of the inaugural Laurel Prize in 2020, Mama Amazonica won the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize 2018 - the first time a poetry book has won this prize for a work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry best evoking the spirit of a place, was shortlisted for the Roehampton Poetry Prize 2018, and was the Poetry Book Society Choice for autumn 2017.
11 Mama Amazonica 14 Jaguar Girl 17 Rainforest in the Sleep Room 19 Macaw Mummy 20 Taxidermy 21 Love Charm 22 My Mother's Wedding Dress 23 Chaplet 24 Something Blue 25 Bestarium 26 Bandaged Bambi 27 Love Charm II 28 He Gives Her a Nightdress Sheer as a Mist-Net 29 Giant Jewel Beetle Ear-Pendants 30 Miscarriage 31 Serpentarium 34 El Hombre Caiman 36 Precious Goliath Beetle 37 Buck 38 The Birth of Jaguar Girl 40 My Amazonian Birth 44 Hummingbird Birth 47 L'Assistance Publique 48 Harpy Eagle Mama 49 Baby Caimans 51 Musica Mundana 52 Limed Blossoms 54 My Mother's Dressing Gown 56 Square de la Place Dupleix 57 Her Harpy Eagle Claws 58 Madre de Dios 60 Fossa 63 Anaconda 64 Black Caiman with Butterflies 65 Extrapyramidal Side Effects 68 Terribilis 69 Jaguar Mama 72 Bottled Macaw 74 Waterlily-Jaguar 76 Scarlet Macaws 78 Rio Tambopata 79 Uirapuru and the Tangarana Tree 80 Corpse Flower 81 My Mother's Love 82 When My Mother Became a Boa 84 Mama Ferox 86 The Hospital Haircut 88 Zarafa the First Giraffe in France 90 Great Grey Owl 91 Ocelot 92 Kapok 93 Ah Puch 95 Snow Leopard Woman 96 In the Giraffe House 97 Mama Macaw 98 Rebirth of the Rainforest 99 My Wolverine 100 The Hummingbird Whisperer 101 Mama Oceana 102 Musician-Wren 103 King Vultures 106 The Hummingbird Nest 109 Acknowledgements
