The chickens cannot
find their heads
though they search for them,
falling in the grass.
And the great bulls
remain on their knees,
unable to remember
how to stand.
The goats cannot find their voices.
They run quickly
on their sides,
watching the sky.
We have a mini animal run going here.
ReplyDeleteThis is a perfect display of animal cruelty. Not ao much the chikcken, but the bull and goat especially.
The chicken could be a basic killing for a meal. Living it Africa, it is very common to kill a chicken by cutting its head off. I did a couple times, and as long as the knife is sharp and the person is direct (knows what they are doing), I'd say it is a humane way to kill an animal.
The bull reads like a bull fighter, stabbibg the bull until it can no longer stand. This is not at all humane.
The goat, I'm not sure about. But running around on It's side reads really bad. People killed and ate goat a lot in Africa too, i used to eat it. My neighbors even bought and killed their own goats. But I don't remember those killings. The one I remember was a pig. I'll just say it didn't die fast.
It's interesting that the three animals here are common foods. Is this a push towarda vegetarianism but showing the cruelty of the animals deaths?
I really enjoyed your last comment- I absolutely think so! So many people, myself included, never think about where food comes from. It wasn't until I started my own research an animal cruelty, animal rights, and animal agriculture that I pretty much instantly turned vegan- I think it will be 4 years this Spring. I love the idea of this type of opposite poem for a purpose- I may try one if I can get up the guts.
ReplyDeleteThis poem also reminded me of Orwell's Animal Farm- also common animals that people eat for food. I haven't read this in a while, but if I remember correctly eventually even the animals went against themselves...instead of human versus animal, I think this poem could play on human versus human in that same kind backwards sense. I can't remember how Animal Farm ends....??
Couldn't stand it- I Spark noted....lol....and just cracked up at how perfect this felt when they summarized with the term "Animalism".
The poem “Killing the Animals” by Wesley McNair is a dark and gloomy poem that makes readers think differently about animal butchering. This poem is a free verse poem intended to show how tragic the death of these animals is. It really shines a new light on the killing we are doing to eat. This poem is bringing the reader's attention to the terrible deaths which these animals are receiving in a way that not many have seen before.
ReplyDeleteThe imagery in this poem is hard to avoid. It is practically the whole poem. There are three main images used that all portray different aspects of the same point. The first image is painted about a chicken: “The chickens cannot / find their heads / though they search for them, / falling in the grass.” The image that is given is a sad, vivid picture telling the reader of the confused animal looking for its own head after being decapitated, clearly pointing out a thought process in the chicken's brain. It is a gruesome scene that turns into more sadness than disgust in the last stanza. “Falling in the grass” written giving a more soft and melancholy action. The first three lines are written in a frantic action and after the comma, in the last line it is more of defeat.
The second image that McNair writes is about a bull. The image is of the “great bulls” once proud and large, have fallen to their knees. They too are drawn as defeated. The title tells us that this is about “Killing the Animals” making it clear that these bulls are being killed. The image of cattle being slaughtered in envisioned. Cattle are shot with a contraption that is designed to give them a quick and painless death but often the tool is used in a wrong way or misfires and doesn’t kill the cow right away. You can imagine this hurts the animal enough for it to collapse onto the ground, disorienting and inhumanely bringing an end to its life. This image is a soft but serious image that brings a somber tone also referencing a confusion or thought process of the animal.
The third image is the final image and stanza of the poem. Possibly the most gruesome of the three images. “The goats cannot find their voices. / They run quickly / on their sides, / watching the sky.” When animals are shot or are hurt severely they instinctively want to get away as fast as they can but when they are too injured to leave they are just frantically writhing trying to get a hold on the ground to move in any way. This image is pointed out in the goats. The goat is running quickly, but is on its side painting the picture of an injured goat twisting and turning trying to use its legs but being unable to. The goat tries to speak and look up just like a human would, same idea as the thoughts of the other two animals.
These images are effectively working to get the reader to feel for these animals and portray the inhumane killing that happens to them. All three of the animals have human qualities. The chicken is searching but not finding, the bull is trying but unable to remember, the goat is trying to speak but cannot. All of these examples point to McNairs main point that humans shouldn’t kill these animals in such an inhumane way. The animals in this poem have thoughts and are more human than we most of the time think animals to be. He uses imagery to put you in the animals head and give you an idea of what slaughterhouses and butchers are doing to these animals. The images create a vivid and dark image of the way these animals are killed, pointing to the evil of killing the animals.
Wow, you just won the most thoughtful comment award.
ReplyDeleteYou should check out Frans de Waal if you haven't yet. He wrote a book about animals having all the same emotions as humans. I heard a couple interviews with him about his book, Mama's Last Hug.