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Rat I slither and slink, duck under and dither, work my way round the border and work out safe order before finding the source; I claim this resource. As the sanctuary gradually expanded, my deeper learning about each animal and their needs brought greater respect and love for them, not just as species but also for them as individuals. One of the biggest problems I faced in the early years of keeping sheep – and also developing an ethical yarn brand – was finding a reliable and compassionate shearer. In my frustration after one particularly difficult shearing experience where the Danish shearer brought his toddler children along as well as a very grumpy attitude, I wished that we could just ‘unravel’ the fleece from the sheep and knit directly from the animal, bypassing the shearing and wool processing stage completely. How wonderful and stressfree that would be! Linking that idea to spending more time hugging some of my bigger wethers (castrated male sheep) gave rise to this love poem to Ernie the Gotland/TeeswaterX and his lustrous, silvery fleece. Another free form poem mimicking the fall of wool and knitting to the floor, I tried to mix the language of the yarn industry with the subtle behaviour of the animal that I was noticing as I snuggled up to him. There’s something almost musical in being this close to an animal – especially a large one – when their breathing pattern matches your own and you can smell their breath, feel all the different textures of their skin and fibre, look into their eyes and try to guess their thoughts. Here is the opening of the poem: How to knit a sheep Start with the legs. It helps to grab a hoof before casting on, or he might kick you off. Hold the yarn taut enough to test his strength, loose enough to feel his flank quiver as he bunches shanks to stretch the ply, hoping it will fray. Loop and dip, add sufficient stitches to keep his interest, praise his beauty while you unravel him, tug gently or he’ll slip your noose... Thinking analytically about my process of writing about animals, there seem to be three important stages: observation, behaviour, relationship. Firstly, I have to observe the animals closely in their everyday lives – what they do, how often, why, how they interact with their peers, how the weather affects them, what they eat, when they play. Then I need to understand that behaviour, sometimes by more observation but often with additional research with books or online, or by joining a species-specific forum where the members will patiently answer any daft beginner’s questions. Yes, there really is a Facebook group called Goaty Friends, and it’s full of knowledgeable people happy to share what they know about these wonderful caprines. But for me, the most important stage in writing poetry about animals is developing a relationship with them that isn’t solely through the lens of a camera or observing from the farmgate. It has to be hands-on and personal. I think that my better animal poems 5 5 P O E T R Y W A L E S
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are the ones where I really know the individual as well as the breed, and can bring some emotional charge to the words I choose to lay down on the page. All our animals have names, some that are given when they arrive here and some that they bring with them from their previous lives. We’re always asked about the origins of names by visitors to the sanctuary, and this sonnet is about one of the more unusual names for our Herdwick sheep – Mayhem. He arrived pre-named a couple of years ago with his twin brother Chaos. The neat form of the sonnet seemed to really suit the boxy shape of the Herdwick with his dense and compact fleece – I love sonnets for their ability to be beautiful presents, layered with wrapping to reveal a surprise, and Mayhem is just like that in his kind and unexpected nature, soft beneath his coarse and wiry fleece. It also gave me the opportunity to experiment with compound words that seemed to suit the abbreviated shorthand of communicating with animals – not trying to represent their language, but somehow condensing and intensifying the senses, feeling them in multidimensions. Mayhem the Herdwick is nothing like his name. He holds proud, close but not against, calm but not without action, shortbreaths huffing to cloud your view of a skyline as grey as doubt on this slow October day. Allowed to take a biscuit, bristlehairy nose pokes your pocket for more, while wetfleece damps your leg. His top layer smoky guardhairs evoke carpets, footstools, creased up wiry cushions too coarse for heads. Broken hoof walls beg a foot trim, a chance to wrestle woolbulk and gulp this fragrant heap whose persistent lanolin gloryrises to nest your nostrils. All day you will smell sheep. I’ve been keen to avoid anthropomorphism in my poetry, preferring instead to try a reverse-anthropomorphic or zoomorphic approach where the poem’s narrator becomes the animal, or borrows some of the best traits of the animal to gain advantage or escape in some way. The title poem of my second collection Herd Queen imagines getting out of a sticky situation by being more goat-like, specifically like the female leader of the herd. In every group of goats, a herd queen emerges to lead the way. She earns her place at the top of the hierarchy by proving her strength and stamina in battle with other does, sometimes with bucks too. The herd queen is the leader for life, and gets the best sleeping spot, first dibs at the food, the tastiest plants and treats. We’ve had two herd queens at the sanctuary and they’ve both been fabulous: big feisty characters with great sass and humour – who wouldn’t want to imagine being like them? 5 6 P O E T R Y W A L E S

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Rat

I slither and slink, duck under and dither, work my way round the border and work out safe order before finding the source; I claim this resource.

As the sanctuary gradually expanded, my deeper learning about each animal and their needs brought greater respect and love for them, not just as species but also for them as individuals. One of the biggest problems I faced in the early years of keeping sheep – and also developing an ethical yarn brand – was finding a reliable and compassionate shearer. In my frustration after one particularly difficult shearing experience where the Danish shearer brought his toddler children along as well as a very grumpy attitude, I wished that we could just ‘unravel’ the fleece from the sheep and knit directly from the animal, bypassing the shearing and wool processing stage completely. How wonderful and stressfree that would be!

Linking that idea to spending more time hugging some of my bigger wethers (castrated male sheep) gave rise to this love poem to Ernie the Gotland/TeeswaterX and his lustrous, silvery fleece. Another free form poem mimicking the fall of wool and knitting to the floor, I tried to mix the language of the yarn industry with the subtle behaviour of the animal that I was noticing as I snuggled up to him. There’s something almost musical in being this close to an animal – especially a large one – when their breathing pattern matches your own and you can smell their breath, feel all the different textures of their skin and fibre, look into their eyes and try to guess their thoughts. Here is the opening of the poem:

How to knit a sheep

Start with the legs. It helps to grab a hoof before casting on, or he might kick you off. Hold the yarn taut enough to test his strength, loose enough to feel his flank quiver as he bunches shanks to stretch the ply, hoping it will fray. Loop and dip, add sufficient stitches to keep his interest, praise his beauty while you unravel him, tug gently or he’ll slip your noose...

Thinking analytically about my process of writing about animals, there seem to be three important stages: observation, behaviour, relationship. Firstly, I have to observe the animals closely in their everyday lives – what they do, how often, why, how they interact with their peers, how the weather affects them, what they eat, when they play. Then I need to understand that behaviour, sometimes by more observation but often with additional research with books or online, or by joining a species-specific forum where the members will patiently answer any daft beginner’s questions. Yes, there really is a Facebook group called Goaty Friends, and it’s full of knowledgeable people happy to share what they know about these wonderful caprines.

But for me, the most important stage in writing poetry about animals is developing a relationship with them that isn’t solely through the lens of a camera or observing from the farmgate. It has to be hands-on and personal. I think that my better animal poems

5 5 P O E T R Y W A L E S

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