Factory Farming & Poetry

Ashley Capps, author of Mistaking the Sea for Green Fields, emailed me (and many other poets) to ask if I would consider posting links to both a poem she published in Boston Review and a youtube video.

What I loved so much about her email was that she said, "I absolutely don't believe people have to be vegan or vegetarian to care about the treatment, and living/dying conditions, of farm animals, or to advocate for farm animal welfare." She also selflessly mentioned that it is more important that someone watch the video than read the poem.

Hopefully, you will read the poem and watch the video. Both are worth your time.

Dog Days

These are definitely the dog days, but in a literal, good sense of the word. I am lucky that I work in a field that gives me the summers off because these past weeks have been important to Edith's training. She is 11 weeks old and she can sit, lie, and give me five. She adores and tortures Telemachus. All in all, it's a nice little family.

I have had a lot of time to read and write as well. This past week I read Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, Dog Years by Mark Doty, Mistaking the Sea for Green Fields by Ashley Capps, and Huck Finn. I loved every single book. Though Huck Finn and Into the Wild did make me get the traveling itch again.

For those of you who love poetry, I highly recommend Capps' book Mistaking the Sea for Green Fields. I am on my third read and have found it to be a stunning debut book. Here's a short poem:

April

Everywhere, the ghost
wigs of dandelions,
everywhere the green
toothache of early spring.
The cops-in-training
are beating their horses,
and they wave at me
from the fields. All the girls
show their shoulders now.
The future promises more
of the same. It is hard
to love people enough.

For those of you who love poetry and/or dogs, Doty's Dog Years is a lovely memoir about the lives of his two lovely dogs, Arden and Beau. My favorite line in the book is..."Thus, in the face of all dangers, in what may seem a godless region, we move forward through the agencies of love and art."

I am not sure what my reading agenda is this week. I have so many books to read. I'm looking forward to spending some time with Bern Mulvey's book, The Fat Sheep Everyone Wants. Other than that, I have not made up my mind. Happy reading, everyone.