Anna Tivel’s songs unfold like poems whispered across a room—delicate, precise, but carrying the weight of entire lives. With her new record, Animal Poem, Tivel pushes even deeper into that territory, crafting songs that feel less like compositions than field notes of the heart, each one alive with mystery and unspoken truth. “I think of music as a kind of community center,” said Tivel, her cadence as unhurried as her songs. “It feels like the truest way I know how to communicate.”Animal Poem: Songs in the RoundThat instinct toward raw communication is written into the DNA of Animal Poem. That’s the goal: to keep saying it better.”With Animal Poem, Anna Tivel has written a book of living poems, songs that carry within them the quiet brilliance of human experience.