NEW
Geometry of the Restless Herd
Inverting the pastoral, Sophie Cabot Black uses the keeping of animals and tending of land to interrogate the self and in turn reveal new truths about the social, economic, and political realities of contemporary America.
In Geometry of the Restless Herd, Sophie Cabot Black stages a powerful allegory for the social and political realities of our human world. Through hauntingly metaphysical poems set within a sheepherder’s domain, Black conjures fields of harvest and resurrection, of wagers and outcomes—animals to keep, and those destined for slaughter. Here, both singular voices and polyvocal choruses argue through discourse, asking who has the real power, and how are we to survive the violence we do to each other? Learn more…
What People Are Saying...
“Cabot Black’s stunning, fable-like fourth collection (after The Exchange) urges readers, ‘do not expect the known; you were not there.’ This unusual and poignant volume is equal parts gothic and pastoral, full of incisively written imagery characterized by sparse stanzas that allow each line to shine: ‘everyone wants to be near,/ To manage the animal, the range/ of the easily lost.’ This sentiment is echoed again in ‘Almost Aubade’ (‘who came first/ now lost’), where absence and presence preoccupy the speaker. In the second section, Cabot Black reveals that ‘To be mistaken/ For another might be to survive.’ Yet the poems in this collection run no risk of being mistaken for another poet’s oeuvre. Singular and striking in their movements and tone, they are a testament to delicate beauty. Cabot Black walks the tightrope between the gnomic and the visceral, and sticks the landing with the utmost skill and tenderness.”
—from Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)
“Geometry of the Restless Herd, Sophie Cabot Black’s fourth collection, troubles the intersection between pastoral and metaphysical traditions. A speaker, an agent, and a herd of sheep animate this eschatological narrative about shepherding that recalls Louise Glück’s The Wild Iris and Tessa Rumsey’s Assembling the Shepherd.”
–from Poetry Foundation (see full review)
“I was not expecting a book of pastoral poems centered around sheep herding to be so scathing, fiery, and politically eloquent.”
— from The Poetry Society (see full review)
NEW
Geometry of the Restless Herd
Inverting the pastoral, Sophie Cabot Black uses the keeping of animals and tending of land to interrogate the self and in turn reveal new truths about the social, economic, and political realities of contemporary America.
In Geometry of the Restless Herd, Sophie Cabot Black stages a powerful allegory for the social and political realities of our human world. Through hauntingly metaphysical poems set within a sheepherder’s domain, Black conjures fields of harvest and resurrection, of wagers and outcomes—animals to keep, and those destined for slaughter. Here, both singular voices and polyvocal choruses argue through discourse, asking who has the real power, and how are we to survive the violence we do to each other? Learn more…
What People Are Saying...
“Cabot Black’s stunning, fable-like fourth collection (after The Exchange) urges readers, ‘do not expect the known; you were not there.’ This unusual and poignant volume is equal parts gothic and pastoral, full of incisively written imagery characterized by sparse stanzas that allow each line to shine: ‘everyone wants to be near,/ To manage the animal, the range/ of the easily lost.’ This sentiment is echoed again in ‘Almost Aubade’ (‘who came first/ now lost’), where absence and presence preoccupy the speaker. In the second section, Cabot Black reveals that ‘To be mistaken/ For another might be to survive.’ Yet the poems in this collection run no risk of being mistaken for another poet’s oeuvre. Singular and striking in their movements and tone, they are a testament to delicate beauty. Cabot Black walks the tightrope between the gnomic and the visceral, and sticks the landing with the utmost skill and tenderness.”
—from Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)
“Geometry of the Restless Herd, Sophie Cabot Black’s fourth collection, troubles the intersection between pastoral and metaphysical traditions. A speaker, an agent, and a herd of sheep animate this eschatological narrative about shepherding that recalls Louise Glück’s The Wild Iris and Tessa Rumsey’s Assembling the Shepherd.”
–from Poetry Foundation (see full review)
“I was not expecting a book of pastoral poems centered around sheep herding to be so scathing, fiery, and politically eloquent.”
— from The Poetry Society (see full review)
Other Books by Sophie Cabot Black
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News & Events
November 20th, 2026
The Arts Cafe Mystic LaGrua Center, Stonington, CT
September 14th, 2026
Muldoon’s Picnic (with Laurie Anderson, A.M. Homes, and Paul Muldoon) 92nd Street, NYC (7:30)
March 7th, 2026
AWP in Baltimore (with Jill Bialosky, Elise Paschen, and Major Jackson)
November 20th, 2025
American Poets Corner, Cathedral of St John the Divine, NYC (7PM with Marie Howe et al)
November 14th, 2025
North Kingstown Library, N. Kingstown, RI (5:30PM with Padraig O’Tuama)
April 30th, 2025
Grolier Poetry Book Shop, 6 Plympton St. Cambridge MA (7PM with Elise Paschen)
April 25th- April 27th, 2025
March 29th, 2025
AWP in Los Angeles (with Susan Wheeler, Roger Reeves, and Gregory Pardlo)
Sophie Cabot Black
Poet, activist, sometime farmer, sometime teacher, Sophie Cabot Black is the author of three collections: The Misunderstanding of Nature, The Descent, and The Exchange. NPR called her “the poet’s poet”, her work was a “hot pick” on CNBC’s Topic A with Tina Brown, and from time to time can be seen in the pages of The New Yorker. She has won several awards and prizes, and currently divides her time between New England and New York City. Learn more…
