Of Poets That Sing In Different Keys - Review by Deirdre Hines
Les Animots: A Human Bestiary is just such a postmodern bestiary, and is a collaboration between poet Gordon Meade and artist Douglas Robertson. The collection is so cleverly constructed that it can take several field trips before the complexity of its ecosystem is fully appreciated.
The collection is divided into four galleries with seventeen poems in each, but is prefaced by quotes from The Old Testament, Derrida, and Laurel Peacock, followed by a Proem, and concluded with a poem about the only fabulous beast in the collection, Dragon as a mischievous Postscript.
The relationship between animals and Adam in the Old Testament was one of dominion. The quote Meade uses refers to Adam's naming of all living creatures. Derrida is best known for a form of analysis known as deconstruction, a critical outlook concerned with the relationship between text and meaning. Deconstruction tries to show that any text is not a discrete whole but contains many irreconcilable and contradictory meanings that any text has therefore more than one meaning.
Derrida coined the term 'animot' to evoke a multiplicity within the singular term 'the animal', a term he considers to be the fundamental violence against animals in our language that enables real violence. The quote 'The animal is a word..' has layered significance then. Finally, Laurel Peacock writes 'An animot is an animalistic kind of word, and a linguistic kind of animal, attributing animation, even agency, to language.' This leads the reader to expect a departure from the habituated poetic topos of the animals we will meet. The quote is taken from Peacock's essay 'Animots and the Alphabete in the Poetry of Francis Ponge'.
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Les Animots: A Human Bestiary is just such a postmodern bestiary, and is a collaboration between poet Gordon Meade and artist Douglas Robertson. The collection is so cleverly constructed that it can take several field trips before the complexity of its ecosystem is fully appreciated.
The collection is divided into four galleries with seventeen poems in each, but is prefaced by quotes from The Old Testament, Derrida, and Laurel Peacock, followed by a Proem, and concluded with a poem about the only fabulous beast in the collection, Dragon as a mischievous Postscript.
The relationship between animals and Adam in the Old Testament was one of dominion. The quote Meade uses refers to Adam's naming of all living creatures. Derrida is best known for a form of analysis known as deconstruction, a critical outlook concerned with the relationship between text and meaning. Deconstruction tries to show that any text is not a discrete whole but contains many irreconcilable and contradictory meanings that any text has therefore more than one meaning.
Derrida coined the term 'animot' to evoke a multiplicity within the singular term 'the animal', a term he considers to be the fundamental violence against animals in our language that enables real violence. The quote 'The animal is a word..' has layered significance then. Finally, Laurel Peacock writes 'An animot is an animalistic kind of word, and a linguistic kind of animal, attributing animation, even agency, to language.' This leads the reader to expect a departure from the habituated poetic topos of the animals we will meet. The quote is taken from Peacock's essay 'Animots and the Alphabete in the Poetry of Francis Ponge'.
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London Grip - Review by Fiona Sinclair
'This is a collection to return to. The poems have layered meanings that often are only grasped on second or third readings. The reader comes away with a sense of a common bond between man and animals. Such a bond can lead to us considering not only social issues but also deeper philosophical concepts such as the relevance of our lives, our origins and our desire for some kind of spirituality. Meade’s words, coupled with Robertson’s exquisite images, make this a book to delight in and savour for years to come.'
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'This is a collection to return to. The poems have layered meanings that often are only grasped on second or third readings. The reader comes away with a sense of a common bond between man and animals. Such a bond can lead to us considering not only social issues but also deeper philosophical concepts such as the relevance of our lives, our origins and our desire for some kind of spirituality. Meade’s words, coupled with Robertson’s exquisite images, make this a book to delight in and savour for years to come.'
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Dundee University Review of the Arts - Review by Gavin Cruickshank
'Les Animots is not easily defined and would seem equally at home in a poetry library or in a zoologist’s laboratory. The marriage of two or more dissimilar ideas can sometimes produce an awkward work that is neither fish nor fowl. Not so here, where poetry, field notes and illustrations are braided into a unique collection. Furthermore, it is not merely aesthetically pleasing, but stands up to repeated reading as new layers of meaning are picked out. It is difficult to think of another work presented in quite the same manner.
Gordon Meade and Douglas Robertson have set a high standard for themselves that will be difficult to match should they choose to collaborate again. Yet it is in no doubt that their readers would eagerly anticipate such a treat.'
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Scottish Writers Centre, Glasgow - Book Launch
'The complex relationship between animals and the attributes given to them by humans, between the namer, named, and the language used to do the naming, is a running theme throughout the collection, which is organised into four thematic galleries. The poems, which appear with titles only in the index, can be read as being simply about animals, or as symbolically about people, but are most rich when read in the liminal light between the two, causing us to question our understanding not just of the creatures in the world around us, but also our understanding of our own and other humans’ behaviour.
'What emerged, however, was a work that is ultimately only enhanced by the dialectics that remain between the lines of the drawings and the lines of the poems. 'I like giving a voice to things that don't have one,' Gordon told us towards the end of the evening, and this is the real magic of his animots; rather than conferring a defined and restricted identity onto them, Gordon has instead imbued them with enough life to have a range of identities all their own, augmented and re-lit by Douglas's illustrations, and quotes from across history and literature - meaning that, far from being stuffed, mounted, or caged, these animals are as free as our imaginations.'
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'The complex relationship between animals and the attributes given to them by humans, between the namer, named, and the language used to do the naming, is a running theme throughout the collection, which is organised into four thematic galleries. The poems, which appear with titles only in the index, can be read as being simply about animals, or as symbolically about people, but are most rich when read in the liminal light between the two, causing us to question our understanding not just of the creatures in the world around us, but also our understanding of our own and other humans’ behaviour.
'What emerged, however, was a work that is ultimately only enhanced by the dialectics that remain between the lines of the drawings and the lines of the poems. 'I like giving a voice to things that don't have one,' Gordon told us towards the end of the evening, and this is the real magic of his animots; rather than conferring a defined and restricted identity onto them, Gordon has instead imbued them with enough life to have a range of identities all their own, augmented and re-lit by Douglas's illustrations, and quotes from across history and literature - meaning that, far from being stuffed, mounted, or caged, these animals are as free as our imaginations.'
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