The Compass

Dominion: The animals and the poets

The Compass

Amidst birds passing over or nesting by the Solway Firth in southern Scotland, writer Kayo Chingonyi explores the role of poetry in bringing humans and non-human animals closer. He asks why we turn to poetry to fill the space between human and animal life and discovers ways in which poetry is a powerful human form for entering into the unstructured, more instinctive world of non –human animals. He walks through the wetlands with poet Isabel Galleymore and poetry scholar Sam Solnick. He also talks to newly appointed professor of poetry at Oxford University, Alice Oswald, along with Joshua Bennett and Onno Oerlemans. The programme features full readings or extracts from the following poems: Tame by Sarah Howe Black Rook in Rainy Weather by Sylvia Plath To A Mouse by Robert Burns Pike by Ted Hughes Otter by Seamus Heaney The Kingdom of Sediment by Jacob Polley Dear Whinchat by Belinda Zhawi Limpet and Drill Tongued Whelk by Isabel Galleymore Self Portrait as Periplaneta Americana by Joshua Bennett Flies by Alice Oswald The Moose by Elizabeth Bishop Elephants by Les Murray Producer: Kate Bland (Photo: Kayo Chingonyi with Isabel Galleymore, Sam Solnick and Brian Morrell at Caeverlokc Wetlands Centre. Credit: Kate Bland)

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