ABSTRACT
Poetry about animals draws our attention to questions, ethical and otherwise, as to the possibility of writing and speaking for others. That kind of investigation in turn suggests questions as to whether human thinking can take us beyond the limits of a literary construction of animals. In this chapter we argue that poetry, to be worth preserving, needs to have epoch-to-epoch resonance for the child and adult readers. Concomitant with this claim, we note that resonance of poetry from childhood will have great importance for those adults to whom poetry remains a vital source of rhythm and meaning in life. Main texts include Ted Hughes’ ‘Thought Fox’ (1957) , Theodore Roethke’s ‘The Bat’ (1938) and ‘The Meadow Mouse’ (1966), Les Murray’s ‘The Gods’(1992) and Alfonsina Storni’s ‘Hombre pequeñito’ (‘Dear Little Man’, 1986).
