POETRY
as activism
New Book:
‘I, animal’ is an emotional and reflective posthumanist poetry, hybrid creative writing and artwork collection, that takes you closer to the human-animal relationship.
...I do it because I care, because I want to express my beliefs, but I want a dialogue, not dogma...
Piece written for:
'Poetry in a time of Protest.'
Edwidge Danticat:
My influences for the All Creatures piece:
Don’t close the doors
Don’t close the doors
Vent the space
Let in the honesty
The revulsion seeping out
The stink
The horror
The choked feeling of surreal abandonment
Don’t hide the control
The fencing that curves to prevent the view ahead
The dead
The blood-spattered space
The sticky mess, entrails without tails
Let the wind blow through
Words formed in honest simple tones
Different shades from red
Respect the dead
Let such places be relics, disregarded humanism, speciesism
Let them crumble, tattered, forgotten museum pieces,
metal, stone, wood, white tiled
Blood memory-floods
Don’t overlook your part
Alongside, in oblivion
Alongside, inspecting and silent
Alongside, screaming and sacrificing the self
Blood to bone they shared in our life
Born but not fully allowed to live, to be unrealised
Merely an idea of a non-human animal
An idea of a pig, chicken, cow, calf, sheep, duck, goose…
An onward list of feeling flesh
Our claim, our prime cut, leg of, liver of, skin
Our selfish, violent, greed, self-driven, gruesome distortions
Open the doors and let the wind blow through
Let the post humanist-human breathe in relief
Of retribution
Of reconciliation
Of silent vigil
Of peace
Of what has been and will be
Dotty introduced to her new life, prior to giving birth.
Dotty and her piglets PATCH, STANLEY, HUMPHREY, PRUDENCE and CLOVER. DEAN FARM TRUST...
We are story (A Judgement)
My mind runs, wicked
Without wolves,
Gusting forth in a rush of fur and bloody breath
Eyes glisten, blue encircled, dark jet core, holes
Of souls depth
I dream of self-justification, connected by leafy grasp
I align myself, stomping through the woods,
And judge others as ignorant and violent
I care
I am one with the naturality of everything
And you are scum
I bristle, uncomfortable that I am crafted
From the same skin and bone of the humanist
The species-centred wailing voice
Sucking and driving for me, as me
What follows below is my response (We are story) to feelings of judgement during the All Creatures project piece. My own personal anti 'humanism' and working through such emotions.
Consume
Consume every last speck of dust
Leave no word, no - thing, untouched
No idea unexamined
For I am the mighty one, the only linguist
But I am done in the paused moment
The deepening gloom
I am no better or worse
No one is the true enemy
I seek dialogue
I seek to understand
This was written in response to the first UK Covid19 lockdown.
Where have all the humans gone?
A cacophony of
sound,
sharpness,
becomes soft.
You resonate,
feeling
the silence of
breathy moment.
Where have all the humans gone?
The green-fielded shadows
cradle nature,
as bleats, whinny’s, moos and groans
ripple across dewy slopes.
It lasts for months.
Rolling the days further into
protected peace.
Stillness.
As non-human animal hearts, beat,
and birds cry louder
than ever before.
There will never be another time like this.
Where have all the humans gone?
The moment shifts
and the silent human stirs.
Coining banner of wants and needs.
Threatening to come out to play.
I shudder.
Shuffle away,
the bitterness rippling.
It gets me nowhere.
Let the humans be gone.
Are we minutely changed?
With some renewed love
and care of world,
and sentient bodied.
Smoothing out the landscape,
like the hair of an infant,
the mane, the fur, the scale, the skin.
All precious.
I hope
in breathless
moment, observing
the green-fields.
Let the humans be gone.
I watch. I pray
that the
discordant ‘human’
has vanished.
I wait,
in anticipation,
of change.
For a new - Human.
Let the old human be gone.
