front cover of Zea Mexican Diary
Zea Mexican Diary
7 September 1926—7 September 1986
Kamau Brathwaite
University of Wisconsin Press, 1993
In May of 1986 Edward Kamau Brathwaite learned that his wife, Doris, was dying of cancer and had only a short time to live.  Responding as a poet, he began “helplessly & spasmodically” to record her passage in a diary.  Zea Mexican is a collection of excerpts from this diary and other notes from this period of the Brathwaites’ lives, and few who read this book will fail to be caught up in the depth of Edward Brathwaite’s grief.
    Zea Mexican is a tribute to Doris Brathwaite and an exploration of the creative potency of love.  (The title comes from the name Brathwaite gave Doris, who was originally from Guyana of part Amerindian descent.)  Exposing the intimacy of his  marriage, this book is the closest Brathwaite has ever come to an autobiographical statement.  In examining his life with Doris he found the courage to reveal something of his own character.  But, more than an autobiography, Zea Mexican is an extraordinary work of literature, much of it written in the expressive “nation language” of Jamaica and the Caribbean.  Brathwaite filters his pain through his poetic gift, presenting it to the reader with all the poignancy poetry conveys.

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front cover of Zooplankton of the Great Lakes
Zooplankton of the Great Lakes
A Guide to the Identification and Ecology of the Common Crustacean Species
Mary D. Balcer, Nancy L. Korda, and Stanely I. Dodson
University of Wisconsin Press, 1984

Researchers, instructors, and students will appreciate this compilation of detailed information on the crustacean zooplankton of the Great Lakes. The authors have gathered data from more than three hundred sources and organized into a useful laboratory manual. The taxonomic keys are easy to use, suitable for both classroom and laboratory identifications. Detailed line drawings are provided to help confirm the identification of the major species. Zoologists, limnologists, hydrobiologists, fish ecologists, and those who study or monitor water quality will welcome this dependable new identification tool.
    A concise summary of pertinent information on the ecology of these zooplankton is provided in the main body of the text. A check-list of all species reported from each of the Great Lakes and notes on the distribution and abundance of more than a hundred species were compiled from an extensive search of existing literature. In addition, the authors collected samples from several locations on Lake Superior, in order to provide information on the abundance and life histories of the major crustacean species.

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