No More Animal Poems is a plea and an ode to all creatures great and small.
No More Animal Poems breaks new ground with a genre of eco-poetry that could be described as ‘cosmic cli-po’, or climate change poetry, invested in evocations of a multiverse in crisis. Employing a play on the futuristic eye/I, the poetry in this volume anticipates universes changed by climate. In the year 2026, the Anthropocene is in crisis and biodiversity is becoming increasingly less diverse, as extinctions continue to occur around the globe. Global warming continues apace and many national governments refuse to significantly decrease their burning of fossil fuels. These poems probe a wide variety of issues and life forms associated with the rising extinction rate and the associated folly, greed and shortsightedness of humanity in the face of potential climate disaster. Importantly, this volume is pointedly structured as a series of courses on a menu, or perhaps a futuristic omakase. These witty but often savage gastronomies advocate for the non-human and critique contemporary consumption, including tokenistic veganism.
They also refer to a growing hierarchy of foods which prioritise rarity often at enormous expense.
There is a mordant and ironic humor informing many of the poems in this collection, and a keenly observant eye that complements Vincenz’s interest in history and contemporary values. Indeed, some of the more overtly satirical poems skewer the human capacity for self-delusion and self-justification. Vincenz reminds the reader that numerous of our fineries and pretensions are causes of our increasing vulnerability.
As the world changes, humanity’s sense of a secure future dwindles. Their sense of their place in the world not only becomes more insecure but is riven by contradiction and crisis. And, in the midst of such change, poetic language itself becomes a plea. Vincenz’s poems evoke what is lost or being lost with a pithy accuracy:
faded watercolors of waterfalls and birds,
the salmon spawning, the she bears gulping salmon
as they ride the upsurge, upstaging the hovering buzzards;
and, at night, the crickets singing ancient love songs.
