"Gilgamesh Wilderness is a keening. Part elegy, part eulogy, it is a brilliantly written lamentation about the loss of the beloved. That the beloved is a dog made these verses resonate all the more for me. Because, like the warrior companion whose death sent the classical Gilgamesh into a spiral of grief, like the service dog whose ghost spirit still lives with me, this dog is no doting lover, but an ally, a familar, a friend. Walk in the wilderness with Jessamyn Smyth and her Gilgamesh, and remember how fierce love can be. This is so much more than a woman and dog story. I waited for this book, and it was worth the wait."
- Michel Wing, author of Body on the Wall
“An elegy of the highest order. The narrator’s love and grief recall the most ancient myths while also subverting them. Her canine companion Gilgamesh becomes Enkidu, and she, Enkidu, becomes Gilgamesh. They merge into one being. Orpheus is now a witch whose song resonates across humanity, yet she mourns for the inhuman. She has the faith and wits to wait this time until she reemerges above ground before turning around to face death. Her beloved’s tapetum eyes, his breath in her palm, the wilderness he senses with keen joy, the pain of her world without him, Rilke’s panther, are all reborn in her exquisite words, a dog’s tracks, stepping across these pages.”
- Rebecca Snow, author of Glassmusic
“…early in Gilgamesh Wilderness… The rib-spreader open truth of it. Like I'm reading Smyth say: "Listen, the worst has already happened. You already love. You can stop holding against it. Put your heart into my hands, into my voice. Trust me and we will look together."”
- Claudia Mauro, author of Stealing Fire, publisher at Whit Press
“…the opening piece [is] stunning. Beautiful prose and mystifying a mysterious character in such a powerful way. This line is going to stay with me for a while: 'that pulsing you see in the inside of her wrist, it’s misleading;' … a powerful journey…”
- John Sheirer, author of Stumbling Through Adulthood: Linked Stories