The+Lives+of+Animals

Check out the one from 7 Dec. 2009, includes an interview with Seamus Heaney about his bog people poetry and another one about __Disgrace__, the film []
 * BBC Arts podcast

Assignment: Oral Sparks Notes-gibi ("-gibi" is a Turkish suffix roughly akin to "-ish" or "-like" in English; it's closer to what I mean here) **

== Emma 15-16  Alice 16-18 Gene 18-19 Julie 20-22 Kat Lee 22 Melissa 22-24 Murphy 24-26 Sophie 26-27 Chris 27-30 Rena 30-36 Renee 36-40 Kat Tsen 40-44 Dolf 44-49 Benedetta 49-50 Steph 51-53 Catalina 53-58 Connie 59-64 Andrea 64-end

= = =The Poets and the Animals= What do you think? Do these two poets see animals fundamentally differently? What characterizes their differences? Does any of it matter?

"The Panther"
His vision, from the constantly passing bars, has grown so weary that it cannot hold anything else. It seems to him there are a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over, the movement of his powerful soft strides is like a ritual dance around a center in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.

Only at times, the curtain of the pupils lifts, quietly--. An image enters in, rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles, plunges into the heart and is gone. 

"The Jaguar"
The apes yawn and adore their fleas in the sun. The parrots shriek as if they were on fire, or strut Like cheap tarts to attract the stroller with the nut. Fatigued with indolence, tiger and lion

Lie still as the sun. The boa-constrictor’s coil Is a fossil. Cage after cage seems empty, or Stinks of sleepers from the breathing straw. It might be painted on a nursery wall.

But who runs like the rest past these arrives At a cage where the crowd stands, stares, mesmerized, As a child at a dream, at a jaguar hurrying enraged Through prison darkness after the drills of his eyes

On a short fierce fuse. Not in boredom— The eye satisfied to be blind in fire, By the bang of blood in the brain deaf the ear— He spins from the bars, but there’s no cage to him

More than to the visionary his cell: His stride is wildernesses of freedom: The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel. Over the cage floor the horizons come.

- Ted Hughes
 = =

="A Second Glance at a Jaguar"=

Skinful of bowl, he bowls them, The hip going in and out of joint, dropping the spine With the urgency of his hurry Like a cat going along under thrown stones, under cover, Glancing sideways, running Under his spine. A terrible, stump-legged waddle Like a thick Aztec disemboweller, Club-swinging, trying to grind some square Socket between his hind legs round, Carrying his head like a brazier of spilling embers, And the black bit of his mouth, he takes it Between his back teeth, he has to wear his skin out, He swipes a lap at the water-trough as he turns, Swivelling the ball of his heel on the polished spot, Showing his belly like a butterfly At every stride he has to turn a corner In himself and correct it. His head Is like the worn down stump of another whole jaguar, His body is just the engine shoving it forward, Lifting the air up and shoving on under, The weight of his fangs hanging the mouth open, Bottom jaw combing the ground. A gorged look, Gangster, club-tail lumped along behind gracelessly, He's wearing himself to heavy ovals, Muttering some mantrah, some drum-song of murder To keep his rage brightening, making his skin Intolerable, spurred by the rosettes, the cain-brands, Wearing the spots from the inside, Rounding some revenge. Going like a prayer-wheel, The head dragging forward, the body keeping up, The hind legs lagging. He coils, he flourishes The blackjack tail as if looking for a target, Hurrying through the underworld, soundless. =– Ted Hughes=

More from other thinkers...
===[|Peter Singer], featured essayist in __The Lives of Animals__ And a review of the larger work __Elizabeth Costello__ -- might give you the inspiration to read the whole thing, or at least find out more about this writer! (A bit about __Disgrace__ here, too) ===