S8. E3: Gordon Meade: Zoospeak

Justice

Jun 16

Brown Bear, Germany, 2008

I'm aware of what you are
and I'm also aware of what you're
thinking. You're a human being

I'm aware of what you are
and I'm also aware of what you're
thinking. You're a human being
and you are thinking I am something else

I'm aware of what you are
and I'm also aware of what you're
thinking. You're a human being
and you are thinking I am something else
put here for your entertainment.

I'm aware of what you are
and I'm also aware of what you're
thinking. You're a human being
and you are thinking I am something else
put here for your entertainment,
that makes it easier for you to ignore me
and the wire mesh that surrounds me.

- Gordon Meade

Gordon Meade is a Scottish poet and animal advocate. His 10th book of poetry is called Zoospeak. It’s about the inhumane and appalling conditions for animals who live in zoos and other terrible places. He wrote it to accompany the photographs in Jo-Anne McArthur’s, Captive a haunting book of photographs featuring animals in captivity.

If you are unfamiliar with Jo-Anne’s work, go to We Animals Media and take a look. It will change you. I read/looked at Captive years ago and I truly did not think it could get more powerful or feel more devastating than it felt right then, and then I came across Gordon’s poetry. It offers an entirely new dimension to the photos, one that makes you look at the animals and really see and feel their perspective on the situation. It floored me.

Please listen and share and then, read Gordon’s poems.

In gratitude,

Elizabeth Novogratz

Listen to Gordon Read From His New Book Zoospeak

Purchase Gordon Meade’s Book Zoospeak

Learn More About Captive

Transcript:

Gordon: [00:00:15] I am aware of what you are. I am also aware of what you are thinking. You are a human being and you are thinking I am something else put here for your entertainment. That makes it easier for you to ignore me and the wire mesh that surrounds me. The wire mesh that separates us and your way of thinking, from mine.

Elizabeth: [00:00:51] Hi, I'm Elizabeth Novogratz. This is Species Unite. We have a favor to ask. If you like today's episode and you have a spare minute, could you please rate and review Species Unite on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts? It really helps people to find the show. This conversation is with Scottish poet, Gordon Meade. Gordon's 10th book of poetry is called Zoo Speak. It is about the inhumane and appalling conditions of animals living in zoos. He wrote it to accompany the photographs in photojournalist Joy McArthur's book Captive. That book, I will tell you, will get you. It's haunting and devastating. But Gordon's poems make it at home in an entirely different way. Gordon, hi. Thank you so much for being here today. It's really good to see you.

Gordon: [00:02:10] It's good to be here.

Elizabeth: [00:02:11] So today, I don't know if you know this because it's a US thing, but today is a really big deal in the US for zoos, for elephants. It is the day that happy the elephant at the Bronx Zoo. Her case is being heard by the highest court that a nonhuman animal case has ever been heard by in an English speaking jurisdiction. So we'll see what happens. I don't know, it felt very synchronistic that this is the day we ended up talking about you and your book Zoo Speak. There's some big zoo stuff happening.

Gordon: [00:02:48] That’s super.

Elizabeth: [00:02:49] It’s cool. I mean, if she wins, she gets rights. Which means she will be moved out of a zoo to a sanctuary. It will open up the doors for every elephant in every zoo in the US. So, Gordon, you're in Scotland.

Gordon: [00:03:06] I'm a Scottish poet based in the East Neuk of Fife. I've been writing poetry, mostly about animals, occasional humans, for about 30 years or so. I’ve been a Royal Literary Fund writing fellow for the University of Dundee. Done quite a lot of work in schools in Scotland with kids, with creative writing. Now I spend most of my time on my own writing still mostly about animals, but with the occasional poem about something else.

Elizabeth: [00:03:38] When you started writing about animals, what kind of inspired you to start writing about them?

Gordon: [00:03:43] They have always really been part of my life. I was brought up in the countryside. My father was a grain merchant, so he was going round farms, collecting grain samples, etc. I used to go with them from time to time. He was a very keen angler, so I used to go on fishing trips with him as well. So they've always been there and we had dogs as pets. There was something that I was taken to the zoo when I was very young at Edinburgh Zoo and saw a panther in a cage and was really quite affected by it, for someone so young. I wrote a poem about it, about 30 years later. That really did have a big effect on me, just the way the animal was kept. It was kept in a sort of dingy area of the zoo and a very small cage.

Elizabeth: [00:04:43] When you started writing, especially about animals, was it mostly about their beauty and that sort of thing, or were you right away writing about their suffering?

Gordon: [00:04:57] I was aware quite early on, even with our pets, sometimes sort of incredulous, looked at them and thought, what were they actually doing here with us? I suppose I was aware quite early on that they didn't have much agency in what happened in their lives. I suppose that's quite parallel with kids, really. You know, they're going to get fed when they're told to get fed, they're going to go on a walk and they're told to go on a walk, etc. That's sort of the start of it. Then when I started writing, it was more from the poetry side of things. I think the other poets that inspired me, Ted Hughes, the English poet, writes a lot about animals. His advice is to try and turn yourself into what you're writing, whatever it is and that was really true for me. I felt that was a great way of trying to get into what you're writing about, whether it's an animal or whether it's another person, whatever, just trying to see it from their point of view. Initially, I suppose it was just that I was just happy to write about animals. It wasn't so much the suffering, it was just to try and get some sort of angle on them.

Elizabeth: [00:06:10] Let's talk about Zoospeak, because you are definitely writing from the animals perspective. First of all, will you just give a little, tell us how this book even came about?

Gordon: [00:06:21] Well, I came across Jo-Anne McArthur’s work, I think around 2016 when our Captive book came out, which is photographs of animals in captivity.

Elizabeth: [00:06:33] For people who don't know who Jo-anne McArthur is. She is a photojournalist who has done incredible work for decades on all over the planet, on animals and really just horrific situations.

Gordon: [00:06:48] The photographs in Captive for some reason, they just made such an impact on me that I really felt I had to write some sort of poetic response to the photographs.

Elizabeth: [00:07:00] Will you just talk about Captive for a second, what it actually is.

Gordon: [00:07:04] Well, the book is basically a very weighty book. It's full of photographs of animals, captive animals, mostly in zoos, but there's also photographs of breeding facilities and fur farms, etc. They expressed for me the emotions that these animals might be going through things like zoochosis. They mentioned that just how an animal that has repetitive behavior.

Elizabeth: [00:07:40] Zoochosis is an animal losing its mind, walking in circles. I read captive you know and looked at it, really it's an incredible book with photos all over the world of animals in really bad captive situations. The photographs are haunting. It's devastating. I didn't think it could get more devastating and I really thought I saw Jo-anne's photographs and then I read Zoospeak and it floored me, your poems, because the poems are from the animals perspective. It's not just like, Oh my God, that bear looks miserable. But your poems, they make you realize, Wait, that bears there all day long, every day for every year of its entire life and what it's going through in this moment, it's going through pretty much every moment, every day. It just added such a depth to the kind of horror in a lot of ways. But they're really beautiful at the same time. Did you and Jo work together at all on this?

Gordon: [00:08:49] I'd written about half a dozen of them or so. I thought that, because the rhythms there are alterations, there are subtle changes within the stanzas in some of them. But because the rhythms are quite pounding and quite monotonous in some ways, I felt the book needed something else. It needed another way in to it and because it was based on the photographs, that's what I really needed. So I just Googled Jo and emailed her with a handful of poems. I’d never met her before. I still haven't met her because of the pandemic and everything. But anyway, I hadn't talked to her at all. She really liked the poems. She thought they got what she was doing, which was just great. She said, Well, that's fine. Use the images. Then, of course, she was kind enough to write the foreword for the book as well.

Elizabeth: [00:09:59] Which is beautiful. Would you mind reading one of them?

Gordon: [00:10:01] Yes, sure.

Elizabeth: [00:10:02] Thank you. Do you have a favorite?

Gordon: [00:10:04] Not really. This one just opened up. It's called Tiger Temple, Thailand, 2009. All the poems are in the first person, either I or we, they are all in the present tense with repetition in all of them.

Elizabeth: [00:10:22] Will you tell what the photo is as well? Just so there's more context.

Gordon: [00:10:27] The photos of a tiger. All you can see from the photograph is Tiger lying down and there's a Buddhist monk in his orange robes looking, staring at the tiger. So that is the photograph. You later find out that it was actually at the bottom of a quarry where these tigers are photographed. We did not come to this temple by design. We just stumbled upon it. Nor did we ask to be cared for. We did not come to this temple by design. We just stumbled upon it. Nor did we ask to be cared for by the Buddhist monks who live here. We did not come to this temple by design. We just stumbled upon it. Nor did we ask to be cared for by the Buddhist monks who live here. True, we are fed and water by them. We did not come to this temple by design. We just stumbled upon it. Nor did we ask to be cared for by the Buddhist monks who live here. True, we are fed and watered by them, but we are also led around in chains. We did not come to this temple by design. We just stumbled upon it. Nor did we ask to be cared for by the Buddhist monks who live here. True, we are fed and watered by them, but we are also led around in chains. Maybe you will remember this. We did not come to this temple by design. We just stumbled upon it. Nor did we ask to be cared for by the Buddhist monks who live here. True, we are fed and watered by them, but we are also led around in chains. Maybe you will remember this, as you pose with us for photographs. We did not come to this temple by design. We just stumbled upon it. Nor did we ask to be cared for by the Buddhist monks who live here. True, we are fed and watered by them. But we are also led around in chains. Maybe you will remember this as you pose with us for photographs at the bottom of a nearby quarry.

Elizabeth: [00:12:55] It's powerful. I love how your poems also make us think of what we're doing and witnessing this stuff, going and seeing this stuff. What that actually means and really makes people think about it.

Gordon: [00:13:18] That's the idea is to try and give the animals a voice to the humans in that way.

Elizabeth: [00:13:23] What did this do to you going through and kind of being each of these animals in these situations?

Gordon: [00:13:30] It was difficult, but in the same way the photographs, although they were quite harrowing. I saw them as a sort of a boundary as well. I don't know how the animal activists in the field actually managed to do what they're doing. Face to face with these situations, you know, because the photographs are enough for me. I was aware that I could open the book, I could look at a photograph if it had an effect on me. Poetically, I wanted to write about it. I could do that. But I could close the book and put it away as well and I was aware of that. I was aware of what you said about this was the animal's life, non stop. That's really where I suppose the structure and the form of the poems came from. The use of repetition, which is something I haven't done before now, in my work.

Elizabeth: [00:14:40] It's really powerful.

Gordon: [00:14:41] It seemed the right form.

Elizabeth: [00:14:43] You really feel like you're bearing witness. You know, you're really looking and really feeling and thinking. I'm in this every day, like looking at bad things that humans are doing to animals. I definitely wasn't thinking like animals were having a good time at the zoo by any means, but I was thinking, Oh, that's horrible, but not really thinking much more deeply. Your book really hit home. I think it's so important. Is this something in your life that you've used poetry as activism?

Gordon: [00:15:20] Not really. Not consciously. I've not really been aware that these are the most overtly political appointments I think I've written. There's sort of undertones in my work before then, I suppose. But not consciously, not consciously aware of doing that.

Elizabeth: [00:15:39] I have a lot of favorites, but would you mind if I give you one more to read? It's Brown Bear Germany on page 16.

Gordon: [00:15:46] It's about a bear standing up, looking through the mesh wires of its cage and its enclosure consists of a few logs behind it. That's Brown Bear, Germany, 2008. I'm aware of what you are. And I'm also aware of what you're thinking. You're a human being. I'm aware of what you are. And I am also aware of what you are thinking. You are a human being and you are thinking I am something else. I am aware of what you are. And I am also aware of what you are thinking. You are a human being and you are thinking I am something else put here for your entertainment. I am aware of what you are. And I am also aware of what you are thinking. You are a human being and you are thinking I am something else put here for your entertainment. That makes it easier for you to ignore me. I am aware of what you are and I am also aware of what you are thinking. You are a human being and you are thinking I am something else. But here for your entertainment. That makes it easier for you to ignore me and the wire mesh that surrounds me. I'm aware of what you are, and I'm also aware of what you are thinking. You are a human being and you are thinking I am something else put here for your entertainment. That makes it easier for you to ignore me and the wire mesh that surrounds me. The wire mesh that separates us. I am aware of what you are. And I am also aware of what you are thinking. You are a human being and you are thinking I am something else good here for your entertainment. That makes it easier for you to ignore me and the wire mesh that surrounds me. The wire mesh that separates us and your way of thinking, from mine.

Elizabeth: [00:18:11] What have you been working on since this?

Gordon: [00:18:14] Well, I've got a new book out in March called In Transit, and there’s one section about endangered animals. But the other three sections are more about what I usually write about things about my childhood. There are a few elegies for human beings, and because I was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago, there are some cancer poems in that book, so it's out now. What I'm working on at the moment is another book with some of Jo's photographs and some other photographer's photographs from the book Hidden Animals in the Anthropocene. Which obviously isn't confined to just talking about zoos, it talks about the whole gamut of abuse to nonhuman animals. Factory farming, industrial fishing. Entertainment, faith, all sorts of different areas. I've been writing poems to go with the book Hidden and and I've been writing poems to go with images in that book as well. But it's going to come out in October of this year with Langston Publishing and Media in New York. So I'm looking forward to that.

Elizabeth: [00:19:38] Are you allowed to give us a sneak preview?

Gordon: [00:19:41] I could read a couple, a very short little poem. Let me see. There's one one from the so called entertainment realm. It's called rattlesnake. It's from the Sweet River Festival or Rattlesnake Festival, and lots of rattlesnakes are killed, etc.. Rattlesnake. I am body. I am Spirit. I am Earth. I am fire. I am time. I am space. I am taste. I am desire. I'm revered. I'm reviled. I am risen. And I fall. I'm beheaded. I'm skinned. I am pinned to a wall. Which in the photograph which goes alongside that is just horrendous of these rattlesnake skins into walls with children's hands, bloodied hands with their names. Kids get to do this. I know another couple because they are very short.

Elizabeth: [00:20:56] Yes, please.

Gordon: [00:20:57] Okay. So this one this one is bull and it's about bullfighting and what happens after. After the bullfight, really. Bull. I am power. I am glory. I am regal. I am son. I am bold. I am strong. I am determined. I am one. I am fort. I am defeated. I am discarded. I am bled. I am head over heels. I am hanging by a thread. The photograph is taken just at the side of a bullfight and this bull is hanging upside down after being defeated. The last one I’ll read is pelican. That's from the deepwater oil spill. I am poise. I am Grace. I am love. I am sick. I am beak. I am belly. I am crude. I am slick. I am bill. I am dressed. I am lead. I am gold. I am oil. I am tar. I am Feather. I am cold. Again the photograph, if I remember correctly, is of a pelican being washed down by people at the rescue center.

Elizabeth: [00:22:33] Do you have any from a factory farm?

Gordon: [00:22:36] This one's called sheep. I am lamb. I am ram. I am you. I am fleece. I am spring. I am flock. I am wool. I am peace. I am hearth. I am home. I am flocked. I am shon. I am born. I am bred. I am followed. I am led. And again, this is a photograph of quite a lot of sheep. It's all going in one direction and there's one that's just turned around and it's facing looking straight at the camera, and so be on top of the other ones. I had to try a different approach because I found the photographs in Hidden even more challenging than the ones in Captive definitely.

Elizabeth: [00:23:34] And so what was that process like for you?

Gordon: [00:23:36] I was more aware that I had to have some sort of distance between myself and the images. These shorter poems what they try to do is they want to try to give their sort of their last words, really, of the animals. The book is called Exposed, and the subtitle the publisher gave is Animal allergies.

Elizabeth: [00:24:05] That's just like really? Yeah.

Gordon: [00:24:09] In a way, but very short. The idea was to try and allow the poems to say a little about the animals. The situation they found themselves in. But still retaining a commentary on where they have found themselves, which is a sort of a sort of death row situation. So trying to blend the two together in a very short space, was the idea behind them.

Elizabeth: [00:24:41] And the life they should have had and the life they had. If we hadn't interfered. When you work with kids, do you bring them this kind of animal poetry?

Gordon: [00:24:55] Not, these ones. I haven't done it for a while anyway, but when I was doing it it was, it was very young kids. So they were in primary school they would’ve been about sort of, 6 to 10. We did animal poems. We did try to try the Ted Hughes method of trying to get inside, inside animals, things like that.

Elizabeth: [00:25:16] And how was it?

Gordon: [00:25:17] It was good. It was good. When you think of children's poetry, i.e., poetry written from adults for children. There's lots of humor involved and there's nothing wrong with funny poetry. But kids want to be able to talk about things that are important to them as well, and hopefully that gives them the platform to do so. I'd forgotten about it, but a few days ago I was talking to someone else about this and one of the places we took some of the kids to, from a primary school in Fife, was actually Edinburgh Zoo. It was quite, quite funny because I wasn't so involved in what I am now with animals. But these children, they knew they could realize that these animals were captive. Their poems mirrored that they wrote about the animals as well. But they didn't avoid the fact that there were bars between them or glass between them, etc.. And that they were on their own and they were in a confined space. So yeah, it was very interesting.

Elizabeth: [00:26:31] It's interesting. This happened this morning, I think, because we've been talking a lot about the happy elephant case. Somebody I was talking to this morning who I love dearly and was saying that they were at a zoo this weekend, friends in town with a four year old. So they brought them to the zoo in D.C. and how it's a good zoo. I was trying to politely say, well, you know, I don't really think there's such a thing as a good zoo and the hard, hard thing with zoos is most people outside of our bubble don't really think of zoos as all that bad. Like if they say, oh, well, that's a bigger enclosure. Bigger is certainly better than smaller, but it's still not a great place to live. It's a strange thing that they're just so accepted still, when so many other bad things are happening to animals, there's so much more awareness people know. Right. Which is different than ten, 20 years ago, for sure. People are much more aware of suffering and factory farms and that sort of thing, but it doesn't feel like things have shifted that much with zoos.

Gordon: [00:27:43] No, probably not. No. I mean, I think it might be to do with how people see animals in the wild. So there are animals in the wild. There doesn't seem to be a shift between seeing that and then seeing the same sort of animal as an individual in captivity doesn't seem to connect in that way.

Elizabeth: [00:28:11] It's not the same animal. So you're not really seeing an elephant. You're seeing an elephant in captivity, which is a very different species.

Gordon: [00:28:20] I was aware of that when I was writing the poems as well.

Elizabeth: [00:28:23] It's way more powerful than I imagined it could be.

Gordon: [00:28:28] I'm glad.

Elizabeth: [00:28:28] So thank you for the work you're doing.

Gordon: [00:28:31] Thanks for listening too.

Elizabeth: [00:28:41] To learn more about Gordon and his poetry, go to our website SpeciesUnite.com. We will have links to everything. We are on Facebook and Instagram, @SpeciesUnite. If you have a spare minute and could do us a favor, please subscribe, rate, review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps people find the show. If you'd like to support Species Unite, we would greatly appreciate it. Go to our website, SpeciesUnite.com and click Donate. I'd like to thank everyone at Species Unite, including Garry Knudsen, Caitlin Pierce, Amy Jones, Paul Healey, Santina Polky, Bethany Jones and Anna Connor, who wrote and performed today's music. Thank you for listening. Have a wonderful day.

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JusticeSeason 8

Elizabeth Novogratz https://www.speciesunite.com