A Bestiarum vocabulum, or bestiary is a compendium of beasts.
Originating in the Ancient world, they were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustratedvolumes that described various animals, birds and even rocks. The natural history and
illustration of each beast was usually accompanied by a moral lesson, reflecting the belief that the world itself was the Word of God,and that every living thing had its own special meaning.
In the Middle Ages, animal stories were the chick-lit, the soaps of the day. They had an allure that held Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East in thrall. Although each of these geographical regions adhered to different religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, many of the same spiritual and religious texts were shared by all three. In particular, all three considered all or most of the Hebrew Bible (called the Old Testament by Christians), which contains many references to animals, to be sacred.
 |
| Bestiary manuscripts were usually illustrated. |
manuscripts of all kinds; in churches and monasteries, carved in stone both inside and
out and on wood on misericords and on other decorated furniture;painted on walls
worked into mosaics and woven into tapestries.
worked into mosaics and woven into tapestries.
Medieval animal illustrations are usually not 'realistic', as in many cases, the artist could never have seen an example of the beast.
The Bestiary could be defined as being part scientific observation, part spiritual lesson,all
to impart happy reminder of man's distinction from the animal world. What could a bestiary
offer the modern world? A world where several species disappear into the void of extinction almost daily?
Les Animots: A Human Bestiary is just such a postmodern bestiary, and is a collaboration
between poet Gordon Meade and artist Douglas Robertson. The collection is so cleverly
constructed that it can take several field trips before the complexity of its ecosystem is
fully appreciated. The collection is divided into four galleries with seventeen poems in
each, but is prefaced by quotes from The Old Testament, Derrida, and Laurel Peacock,
followed by a Proem, and concluded with a poem about the only fabulous beast in the
collection, Dragon as a mischievous Postscript.
The relationship between animals and Adam in the Old Testament was one of dominion.
The quote Meade uses refers to Adam's naming of all living creatures. Derrida is best
known for a form of analysis known as deconstruction, a critical outlook concerned
with the relationship between text and meaning. Deconstruction tries to show that any
text is not a discrete whole but contains many irreconcilable and contradictory meanings,
that any text has therefore more than one meaning. Derrida coined the term 'animot' to
evoke a multiplicity within the singular term 'the animal', a term he considers to be the
fundamental violence against animals in our language, that enables real violence.The
quote 'The animal is a word..' has layered significance then. Finally, Laurel Peacock
writes 'An animot is an animalistic kind of word, and a linguistic kind of animal,
attributing animation, even agency, to language.' This leads the reader to expect a
departure from the habituated poetic topos of the animals we will meet. The quote
is taken from Peacock's essay 'Animots and the Alphabete in the Poetry of Francis
Ponge'. The Proem which the collection opens with is a delightful subversion of the
solemnity which ordinarily accompanies mention of Saint Francis. The poet asks
'Who the Hell/ did he think he was, that two-legged,/joining in all their conversations?'
The fabulous elements of bestiaries accommodate the impossible, and the ability to
talk to animals is entirely apropos here.A proem is a brief introduction to a book, and
what is real and what is not real is immediately turned on its head, which is necessary
if we are to re-enter our relationship with the subjects of all the subsequent poems.
Gallery One opens with a quote from the American poet Charles Wright's poem 'I shall be released'.
It speaks of the change that comes when we move beyond naming. This is a leap into
unknown territory. The territory of giving animals their own voice. We transmute into
humans determined by Panther's leap into the unknown, Snake's rattle, Raven's magic,
Fox's self-determination, Beaver's reclamation of his own identity, Wolf's life story
contained in a single sound, the societal rejection of Seahorse's surrogacy, Crab's
heart, Coyote's gastronomic inclinations,Gannet's indifference, Magpie's eye for
colour and dazzle, Hare's lunar presence, Woodpecker's drilling of truths, Spider's
oblique approach and Seal's view of the parallel universe of the human.
To a certain extent the poems are concrete poems in that some of the meaning
is conveyed partly or wholly by visual means. I particularly loved the playing cards
Robertson sketches in the tail feathers of Raven, adding extra meaning to Meade's
opening stanza.
Raven is bringing magic.
It is not the sort of magic
you see on Channel Four.
The television sets the majority of people glean their knowledge of the animal
kingdom and the society that has created the human animal that knows so little
of the world it inhabits is given a wry tug by Seal in the final lines of this gallery.
'To him, watching us is like us watching a movie, on television.'
My favourite poem in this section is Fox. Meade doesn't reduce any animal
with a determinant, such as 'a' or 'the'. This is a clever decision and a humane
one,as it removes any distancing such a use allows. When Hughes said that he
thought of his poems as animals, in Poetry in the Making, Meade satirises the
industry that has built up around such poetic statements in Fox. Although Hughes
wanted to show what man and animal had in common, Meade appears to be
saying that Fox is much more than a poetic topos.
Fox is sick
of being chosen
as the subject
of so many poems.
He goes on to say that she wishes 'to be left alone/ to get on/ with her business/
of being a vixen;/of raising the next/ generation of/ inspirational cubs'. Meade's vixen
is the prototype of any emancipatory movement, and the plaster cast of her pawprint
that Robertson uses to accompany the text could be read as man's reduction of the
mammal Vulpes to recognising its track and beyond that nothing. It struck me as I was
reading this collection that the interplay between text and image is one that would lessen
both if they were separated.
The lightness of touch in the line drawings that Robertson has chosen to use and Meade's
short lines with each poem opening with the heavy stress on the named animal works.
The book has the feel of a naturalist's field journal, although the absence of colour assumes
the reader/listener can visualise the species described.
Gallery Two is spellbinding, opening with a quote from Michael Collier's poem
'Birds Appearing in a Dream'.
'Everything is real and everything isn't.
Some had names and some didn't.'
This was my favourite section of the collection as this is where many demonised
species are reinvented and in many cases given a rare airing in the world of the poem.
Tadpole remembers Spawn who is thrilled at her endless possibilities, but Frog has
grown far beyond Spawn. This little triad can be read as a metaphor for human growth,
animal biology or more interestingly as the similarity in the maturation process in so
many living things.Butterfly is a poet , as reclusive as Emily Dickinson, but her reasons
are purely down to the detrimental affect chaos theory is having on her life. Brilliant!
She drifts, slowly, around
the rooms of her house, silently mouthing
favourite lines of verse.
Meade's use of enjambment lulls the reader into almost thinking these sound like prose
pieces. Don't be fooled. There is a technical virtuoso here that comes from years of
writing poetry, and nowhere is this evidenced more clearly than in Mole. Mole is to
worm a vengeful God, whose blindness causes his crucifixion on the mole catcher's
barbed wire. This says so simply what miles of print media has failed to adequately
explain about the lengths we all go to or indeed try to run from in the name of belief.
Mole, however, is also
a blind God: a God who, at the end,
will face his own
annihilation at the hands
of Man; a clumsy crucifixion
on a barb of wire.
This has the simplicity and the profundity of a Greek myth, and as such will I believe have
a timeless appeal.
The consequences of man's objectifying of the animal kingdom, their role in our
entertainment business, their depiction as marauding beasts, as demonic as the
serial killer, the lasciviousness with which we look at them, our lack of knowledge
about them are addressed in Gallery Three.This is prefaced by a quote from
Rose Mc Larney's poem 'Facing North'.
I said I would never use animals
as the figures for my sorrows again.
This section has a sadder tone, which is amplified by the images used by the
illustrator. Padlocks, chains, dismembered body parts, scales as protection,
jagged shadow, six cat prints to name a few. Mc Larney's poem has the
euthanasia of a goat as its subject matter, but the damage that we have
done to ourselves as a species in our treatment of the other is what this section
handles so deftly.
Gallery Four is the darkest of the four. Opening with a quote from Jim Harrison's
Songs of Unreason it intimates what is to follow.
A few years back I began to lose
the world of people. I couldn't hold on.
In the poems that follow the lines blur between the two kingdoms. Owl has fiscal
surety, Jackdaw has adopted human addictions, namely alcohol and cigarettes,
Three Toes (sloth) is the victim of capitalist greed, Squid is harvested to whet the
ego of we writers, Rhino is impervious to extinction, Arctic Fox lives in a habitat
affected by global warming, Eagle Owl refuses to migrate from Chernobyl,
Crane has found utopia in the Demilitarised Zone between the ubiquitous North
and South, Horse has gained and lost from being protected by the upper classes,
Elephant has forgotten what he once had, Vulture knows the paradox of life
in death and death in life, Dogfish is a bit of a con, Moth is the black sheep,and
Kingfisher is able to traverse different universes. The poem that clinches this whole
collection for me is Badger. If deconstruction is ' an antistructuralist gesture' then
Badger is the signature poem in this collection. I must admit that I am adverse to
the ongoing cull of old Broc, and that Badger was my favourite character in
'The Wind in the Willows'. Indeed I have had my best romantic encounters by
the kissing gate at the bottom of the Tor in the presence of an ambling badger
and her cubs, who regarded me as an impediment to their nocturnal feed.
Badger has been
on the receiving end
of a government
initiative to try
and wipe him out. There
must be something
about his stripey snout
that upsets the ruling classes.
A representative of
the downtrodden
masses, there is little he can
do about it. Just lie
low, until the men
with the double-barrels either
hit or miss, then go.
The accompanying illustration is not of the badger but of a fox, the trickster human and
two empty shotgun cartridges.This is a tour de force. If only Damh the Bard would set
some of these to music my happiness would be complete.
Gordon Meade is reading from this collection in Cafe Blend in Letterkenny as part
of the celebrations for North West Word's six years of celebrating music and the
spoken word on Thursday 31st March at 8pm. Entry is free, and it will be a
privilege to hear Meade read from what is in the opinion of this blogger a
collection that will be seen as seminal in not just the world of poetry, but also
in the world of environmental politics.The evening will be hosted by Eamonn
Bonnar, who is a compere of wit and sensitivity. Google Letterkenny now.
Book a flight. Be part of a historic literary event.
'Les Animots' is published by Cultured Llama and can be purchased for the most
reasonable price of £13.00 by clicking on www.culturedllama.co.uk/books
You won't regret it.
The Bestiary could be defined as being part scientific observation, part spiritual lesson,all
to impart happy reminder of man's distinction from the animal world. What could a bestiary
offer the modern world? A world where several species disappear into the void of extinction almost daily?
between poet Gordon Meade and artist Douglas Robertson. The collection is so cleverly
constructed that it can take several field trips before the complexity of its ecosystem is
fully appreciated. The collection is divided into four galleries with seventeen poems in
each, but is prefaced by quotes from The Old Testament, Derrida, and Laurel Peacock,
followed by a Proem, and concluded with a poem about the only fabulous beast in the
collection, Dragon as a mischievous Postscript.
The relationship between animals and Adam in the Old Testament was one of dominion.
The quote Meade uses refers to Adam's naming of all living creatures. Derrida is best
known for a form of analysis known as deconstruction, a critical outlook concerned
with the relationship between text and meaning. Deconstruction tries to show that any
text is not a discrete whole but contains many irreconcilable and contradictory meanings,
that any text has therefore more than one meaning. Derrida coined the term 'animot' to
evoke a multiplicity within the singular term 'the animal', a term he considers to be the
fundamental violence against animals in our language, that enables real violence.The
quote 'The animal is a word..' has layered significance then. Finally, Laurel Peacock
writes 'An animot is an animalistic kind of word, and a linguistic kind of animal,
attributing animation, even agency, to language.' This leads the reader to expect a
departure from the habituated poetic topos of the animals we will meet. The quote
is taken from Peacock's essay 'Animots and the Alphabete in the Poetry of Francis
Ponge'. The Proem which the collection opens with is a delightful subversion of the
solemnity which ordinarily accompanies mention of Saint Francis. The poet asks
'Who the Hell/ did he think he was, that two-legged,/joining in all their conversations?'
The fabulous elements of bestiaries accommodate the impossible, and the ability to
talk to animals is entirely apropos here.A proem is a brief introduction to a book, and
what is real and what is not real is immediately turned on its head, which is necessary
if we are to re-enter our relationship with the subjects of all the subsequent poems.
It speaks of the change that comes when we move beyond naming. This is a leap into
unknown territory. The territory of giving animals their own voice. We transmute into
humans determined by Panther's leap into the unknown, Snake's rattle, Raven's magic,
Fox's self-determination, Beaver's reclamation of his own identity, Wolf's life story
contained in a single sound, the societal rejection of Seahorse's surrogacy, Crab's
heart, Coyote's gastronomic inclinations,Gannet's indifference, Magpie's eye for
colour and dazzle, Hare's lunar presence, Woodpecker's drilling of truths, Spider's
oblique approach and Seal's view of the parallel universe of the human.
To a certain extent the poems are concrete poems in that some of the meaning
is conveyed partly or wholly by visual means. I particularly loved the playing cards
Robertson sketches in the tail feathers of Raven, adding extra meaning to Meade's
opening stanza.
Raven is bringing magic.
It is not the sort of magic
you see on Channel Four.
The television sets the majority of people glean their knowledge of the animal
kingdom and the society that has created the human animal that knows so little
of the world it inhabits is given a wry tug by Seal in the final lines of this gallery.
'To him, watching us is like us watching a movie, on television.'
My favourite poem in this section is Fox. Meade doesn't reduce any animal
with a determinant, such as 'a' or 'the'. This is a clever decision and a humane
one,as it removes any distancing such a use allows. When Hughes said that he
thought of his poems as animals, in Poetry in the Making, Meade satirises the
industry that has built up around such poetic statements in Fox. Although Hughes
wanted to show what man and animal had in common, Meade appears to be
saying that Fox is much more than a poetic topos.
Fox is sick
of being chosen
as the subject
of so many poems.
He goes on to say that she wishes 'to be left alone/ to get on/ with her business/
of being a vixen;/of raising the next/ generation of/ inspirational cubs'. Meade's vixen
is the prototype of any emancipatory movement, and the plaster cast of her pawprint
that Robertson uses to accompany the text could be read as man's reduction of the
mammal Vulpes to recognising its track and beyond that nothing. It struck me as I was
reading this collection that the interplay between text and image is one that would lessen
both if they were separated.
The lightness of touch in the line drawings that Robertson has chosen to use and Meade's
short lines with each poem opening with the heavy stress on the named animal works.
The book has the feel of a naturalist's field journal, although the absence of colour assumes
the reader/listener can visualise the species described.
Gallery Two is spellbinding, opening with a quote from Michael Collier's poem
'Birds Appearing in a Dream'.
'Everything is real and everything isn't.
Some had names and some didn't.'
This was my favourite section of the collection as this is where many demonised
species are reinvented and in many cases given a rare airing in the world of the poem.
Tadpole remembers Spawn who is thrilled at her endless possibilities, but Frog has
grown far beyond Spawn. This little triad can be read as a metaphor for human growth,
animal biology or more interestingly as the similarity in the maturation process in so
many living things.Butterfly is a poet , as reclusive as Emily Dickinson, but her reasons
are purely down to the detrimental affect chaos theory is having on her life. Brilliant!
She drifts, slowly, around
the rooms of her house, silently mouthing
favourite lines of verse.
Meade's use of enjambment lulls the reader into almost thinking these sound like prose
pieces. Don't be fooled. There is a technical virtuoso here that comes from years of
writing poetry, and nowhere is this evidenced more clearly than in Mole. Mole is to
worm a vengeful God, whose blindness causes his crucifixion on the mole catcher's
barbed wire. This says so simply what miles of print media has failed to adequately
explain about the lengths we all go to or indeed try to run from in the name of belief.
Mole, however, is also
a blind God: a God who, at the end,
will face his own
annihilation at the hands
of Man; a clumsy crucifixion
on a barb of wire.
This has the simplicity and the profundity of a Greek myth, and as such will I believe have
a timeless appeal.
entertainment business, their depiction as marauding beasts, as demonic as the
serial killer, the lasciviousness with which we look at them, our lack of knowledge
about them are addressed in Gallery Three.This is prefaced by a quote from
Rose Mc Larney's poem 'Facing North'.
I said I would never use animals
as the figures for my sorrows again.
This section has a sadder tone, which is amplified by the images used by the
illustrator. Padlocks, chains, dismembered body parts, scales as protection,
jagged shadow, six cat prints to name a few. Mc Larney's poem has the
euthanasia of a goat as its subject matter, but the damage that we have
done to ourselves as a species in our treatment of the other is what this section
handles so deftly.
Gallery Four is the darkest of the four. Opening with a quote from Jim Harrison's
Songs of Unreason it intimates what is to follow.
A few years back I began to lose
the world of people. I couldn't hold on.
In the poems that follow the lines blur between the two kingdoms. Owl has fiscal
surety, Jackdaw has adopted human addictions, namely alcohol and cigarettes,
Three Toes (sloth) is the victim of capitalist greed, Squid is harvested to whet the
ego of we writers, Rhino is impervious to extinction, Arctic Fox lives in a habitat
affected by global warming, Eagle Owl refuses to migrate from Chernobyl,
Crane has found utopia in the Demilitarised Zone between the ubiquitous North
and South, Horse has gained and lost from being protected by the upper classes,
Elephant has forgotten what he once had, Vulture knows the paradox of life
in death and death in life, Dogfish is a bit of a con, Moth is the black sheep,and
Kingfisher is able to traverse different universes. The poem that clinches this whole
collection for me is Badger. If deconstruction is ' an antistructuralist gesture' then
Badger is the signature poem in this collection. I must admit that I am adverse to
the ongoing cull of old Broc, and that Badger was my favourite character in
'The Wind in the Willows'. Indeed I have had my best romantic encounters by
the kissing gate at the bottom of the Tor in the presence of an ambling badger
and her cubs, who regarded me as an impediment to their nocturnal feed.
Badger has been
on the receiving end
of a government
initiative to try
and wipe him out. There
must be something
about his stripey snout
that upsets the ruling classes.
A representative of
the downtrodden
masses, there is little he can
do about it. Just lie
low, until the men
with the double-barrels either
hit or miss, then go.
The accompanying illustration is not of the badger but of a fox, the trickster human and
two empty shotgun cartridges.This is a tour de force. If only Damh the Bard would set
some of these to music my happiness would be complete.
Gordon Meade is reading from this collection in Cafe Blend in Letterkenny as part
of the celebrations for North West Word's six years of celebrating music and the
spoken word on Thursday 31st March at 8pm. Entry is free, and it will be a
privilege to hear Meade read from what is in the opinion of this blogger a
collection that will be seen as seminal in not just the world of poetry, but also
in the world of environmental politics.The evening will be hosted by Eamonn
Bonnar, who is a compere of wit and sensitivity. Google Letterkenny now.
Book a flight. Be part of a historic literary event.
'Les Animots' is published by Cultured Llama and can be purchased for the most
reasonable price of £13.00 by clicking on www.culturedllama.co.uk/books
You won't regret it.
.
