Caged Verse: Animals in Poetry

chapter 5 Caged Verse: Animals in Poetry

In the Republic, Plato famously remarks that there is an ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy: the latter characterized by precise language and logical disputation, the former by lyrical verse and aesthetic imagery. Later, Em- erson paraphrases both Plato and Aristotle and attempts to settle the old quarrel with the aphorism that “poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history,”1 while Coleridge holds that “no man was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher.”2 With regard to formal distinctions between the aesthetic orientation of poetry and the nonfiction seriousness of prose, Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary has this entry on poets: “one merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose”3 and Coleridge again that “prose=words in their best order; —poetry=the best words in their best order.”4 On the significance of poetry, Archibald MacLeish’s poem about poems concludes that “a poem should not mean/But be”5 while Dylan Thomas seems to counter that “a good poem helps to change the shape and significance of the universe, helps to extend everyone’s knowledge of himself and the world around him.”6 A collection of ideas and quotables from the luminaries of Western letters may seem tangential to a chapter on the representation of animals in Span- ish American poetry, especially when the thrust of this book has been about how literary representations may contribute to discourses of animal ethics. If a poem should not “mean, but be,” it may not contribute much. But if poetry can be defined as the “best words in best order” and can say “more in fewer words than prose” and especially if it can “change the shape and significance of the universe,” then it might be rather important, at least as important as non-lyrical fictional narrative when it comes to weighty ethical issues. Indeed, one of the three poets that I examine in this chapter, Mexican Homero Aridjis is known as an ecological activist and founder of the environmental lobbyist

1 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature aend Selected Essays (New York: Penguin, 2003), 77. 2 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria (New York: Leavitt, Lord, & Co., 1834), 185. 3 Voltaire, A Philosophical Dictionary (New York: E.R. DuMont, 1901). 4 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Table Talk and Omniana of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (London: Oxford University Press, 1917), 73. 5 Archibald MacLeish, “Ars Poetica,” in 101 Great American Poems, ed. Andrew Carroll et al. (Mineola, ny: Dover Thrift Editions, 1998), 73. 6 Dylan Thomas, Quite Early One Morning (New York: New Directions, 1954), 192–93.

136 chapter 5 organization Grupo de los cien, but his poetry and novels far outnumber the nonfiction he has written. As we shall see, Aridjis was intimately and urgently concerned for the survival of whale, butterfly, and other nonhuman species, but his textual expression nearly always comes in the form of lyrical verse and fiction rather than treatise, article, monograph or essay. Aridjis himself is an activist poet and novelist, but as occasionally happens with ethical movements that seek to abolish common practices, advocacy of- ten takes other forms. Animal protectionists in particular are known for active resistance and prison terms are common when the law is broken even when casualty may have only been suffered by inanimate pieces of property. Even expressing verbal support for potentially violent action against animal agricul- ture industries or ecologically damaging edifices can lead to severe penalties.7 Hardy’s observation may be relevant here: “if Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the Inquisition might have let him alone,”8 but poetry some- how functions under the guise of innocence, ingenuity, and stealth. While it is rarely frank or blunt, McHugh observes that sometimes we may still not want to hear what the poet has to say:

I think one of poetry’s functions is not to give us what we want. […] The poet isn’t always of use to the tribe. The tribe thrives on the consensual. The tribe is pulling together to face the intruder who threatens it. Mean- while, the poet is sitting by himself in the graveyard talking to a skull.9

For someone like Salman Rushdie who was targeted by an Iranian fatwa against his life for having published The Satanic Verses, there was a lot on the line for saying what someone did not want to hear. But just four days after the fatwa, he proclaimed that “a poet’s work is to name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.”10 So

7 Anarchist Eric McDavid was sentenced to 20 years in prison for conspiring to destroy a dam and fish hatchery near Sacramento, California, but never harmed anyone or even undertook any action against the property he is accused of conspiring to destroy. His sen- tence was overturned on appeal in 2015 after he served seven years of his term. 8 Thomas Hardy, The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy, ed. Michael Millgate (Athens, ga: University of Georgia Press, 1984), 302. 9 Cynthia Huntington et al., “How to Peel a Poem: Five Poets Dine out on Verse,” Harper’s Magazine, September 1, 1999, 46. 10 “Top 10 Quotes of 1989,” Salman Rushdie, Time, accessed May 22, 2014, http://content. time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1905167_1905168_1905160,00.html.