Kimberly Ann Priest is an assistant professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures at Michigan State University. She is the author of the poetry books Slaughter the One Bird and tether and lung. Her most recent book Wolves in Shells (Backwaters Press, 2025) was published in October.

Wolves in Shells is a modern monomyth telling the story of a woman navigating homelessness, trauma, and memories as she attempts to leave a violent partner. Reflecting on her familial heritage, this survivor grapples with the way she, the women of her history, and her daughter have been conditioned to accommodate the demands of the male ego and predation. Reflective, clear-eyed, and incisive, the poems of Wolves in Shells feature O-Six, a wolf born into the rewilding territory of Yellowstone National Park in the 1990s who serves as a metaphor for women who must cope with violence and survive on their own. Drawing from Gaston Bachelard’s quote “wolves in shells are crueler than stray ones,” the narrative considers how survival requires a balance of protectiveness, risk, trust, and escape.

The Howl

—of O-Six and her pups

You can almost touch the music
that spins open-aired, lungful,
unforced and willful from a pup
taught to revere a little sun
on the throat, a little meat
already in the stomach,
and momma nearby. A moment
of dismantled vigilance—nothing
encroaching, nothing to hunt.
One gray babe after another
uncertain about that first yelp,
usually a signal for danger, but then
her body stretched out on a thick
patch of grass; wrinkles forming
at the sides of her eyes from age
and survival, relaxed; and the way
the howl lingers on and on,
note by note, into that big blue
Yellowstone sky. From Slough
Creek to Lamar Canyon,
they had won themselves a place
to roam within natural boundaries
and now, this. Home
is something to fight for until
it’s predator-free. I wish this for
my daughter—leisure, the earnest
present moment—as she lies
silent beside me on a beach along
Lake Michigan in sand dappled
with American dune grass.
Kingdom: Plantae, Family: Poaceae,
Genus: Leymus, Species: Leymus mollis

Says the Mollusk

I don’t want to go home—
not forever,

but still
I want to feel
that spiraling sound
in my body

when you touch me