Poetry in Motion: Decline of the Animal Kingdom by Laura Clarke

Laura Clarke’s debut collection from ECW Press, Decline of the Animal Kingdom, looks at our ideas of domesticity and freedom, both in humans and animals. At first glance her approach seems fairly simple with its sparse use of language and pop culture references. But when one engages with the poetry, everything from the complexity behind the variety of forms used to the successful balance of the literal and allegorical comes together to create a fresh approach about how we look at our modern world.Our current urban existence, in Clarke’s case Toronto, is filled with contradictions but one thing is certain: all animals, both human and other, that interact with our world leave permanent marks on the land and culture. We live in a world where both dog boutiques and trophy hunting exists, or retro taxidermy and modern eco-tourism. Clarke investigates the victories and defeats in a world such as this with wit and just enough mischievousness to lighten the mood.In an interview with The Rusty Toque, Clarke describes her collection: “Literature across cultures has a strong fascination with animals. Fables always feature animals. Children’s books always feature animals. I see this book as being a bit in the realm of fable. It’s a fable about hating your life and your job.”* * *Clarke won the Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers for “Mule Variations” in 2013, which is the first poem to appear in Animal Kingdom. Below is a video of Laura reading Vigour from the “Mule Variations” sequence, but first Laura has this to say about the number of mules in her collection:There is indeed a single, simple, litmus-like test for the quality of southernness in literature, one easily formulated into a question to be asked of any literary text and whose answer may be taken as definitive, delimiting, and final. The test is: Is there a dead mule in it? As we shall see, the presence of one or more specimens of Equus caballus x asinus (defunctus) constitutes the truly catalytic element . . .— Jerry Leath Mills, “The Dead Mule Rides Again”Please be forewarned: Decline of the Animal Kingdom contains an unusually large number of dead mules. This is 100% the fault of Jerry Leath Mills, who identified over 18 methods of death for these male donkey/female horse hybrids across his studies of southern literature (most frequent offender: Cormac McCarthy) — enough to coin the actual term “Dead Mule Zone.” Most of my literary mules exist on an entirely different geographical plain than classic DMZ beasts, spending their days putting in overtime at their 9–5 jobs, walking their vomit-eating dogs, and streaming cute animal YouTube videos. Think of this poem then, the first I wrote in the series and the first poem in the collection, as a bridge between mule worlds, featuring an animal still surrounded by the mud and stars and horseflies of the southern landscape. * * *Thank you to ECW Press, especially Samantha Dobson, for connecting us with Laura to learn more about her debut collection of poetry!