Backyard Paleontology by Robin Gow; Poetry Chapbook Watch

July 22, 2026 by Jamie Valentine

I enjoy getting a small catalogue of chapbooks from various presses, and today's poetry chapbook is Backyard Paleontology by Robin Gow. The second book I've reviewed from The Glass Press' poetry chapbook series, published in year six of the series (2021-2022). The author of today's chapbook has various works of poetry and fiction which can be viewed more in depth on his website linked below.

Now to start, I like the premise of this chapbook as an extended metaphor for queer rebirth and discovery. I was a dinosaur kid growing up, and loved the Jurassic Park movies to death and would focus on Animal Planet documentaries like 'Walking with Dinosaurs' so this scratches the itch in my brain just right. Incorporating science or medicine into poetry feels kinda taboo, but in so many ways it creates unique art; the title of one poem, "Dinosaur Stereoscopes," showcases this well by having each of its seven stanzas be labeled with 'Slide.' Its art and science mixing to create a new visual for readers to enjoy. A few of my favorites are: "I Slept in a Room of Fossils", "My Brother and I Have Never Slept Well", " Antrodemus/Allosaurus", "Pachycephalosaurus", and " The Garden of Eden Full of Dinosaurs". But I want to really focus in on three poems to show why it is I liked this chapbook, so if you like any of what I mention, feel free to check more out by the writer.

The first I want to focus on is "Antrodemus / Allosaurus", because it reminds me of the importance of a name. That is to say, being seen and acknowledged by our name is important. A core memory I have is having to adjust to my name being called differently because of the differences between Spanish and English. In this poem, the "/" of the two names refers to the queer experience trans and nonbinary people face when they come into their own identity and change their name. This poem is therefore core to the themes the chapbook has of rebirth or the reconstruction the poet has gone through, both thinking back on their past and building on the now of the poem.

Next is "The Garden of Eden Full of Dinosaurs"; I enjoy the literary allusion to the bible. The garden eden has this connotation of peace, but bits of this poem is far from peaceful:

"In my bed this boy and I bruised each other.

The bones of our pelvises

punishing the skin that held them.

The bones wanted to touched each other." (lines 11-14)

This is such a raw description of intimacy and desire. It hooked me into the poem as I read through the rest of the poem and kept my attention long after.

But to me, the poem that I'd like to praise the most would be "My Brother and I Have Never Slept Well". It took me by surprise with its structure. I love a good, highly structured poem. After highlighting and annotating my chapbook, I tried to remember just which type of poem it was. I knew it started with 'pan' and had alternating lines that repeated, which turned out to be a pantoum poem. A pantoum poem, if you're curious, is a type of poem where the lines are roughly in a pattern like this:

1-2-3-4

2-5-4-6

5-7-6-8

7-9-8-10

9-3-10-1

Each stanza will have four lines (quatrain) and replace the second and fourth lines in each stanza and make them the first and third line in the stanza that follow it, until you go back to the first line in the poem. Some poems might repeat this process more than once to increase the length, but the goals remain the same. In changing lines, the poet makes the sound of the poem seem eerie or like a daydream. This poem, with its title and form, reminds me of hearing a sound as you are going to sleep yet finding nothing.

Overall, I really enjoyed this chapbook. 

Check out more by the author on their website: Robin Gow | Poet, Witch, & Educator

For more books from The Glass Press, click here: The Glass Chapbook Series | Glass Poetry Press