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Decline of the Animal Kingdom
A debut collection with a fresh approach
Decline of the Animal Kingdom investigates modern constructs of domesticity, freedom, wilderness, and artificiality to paint a portrait of what it means to be human, animal, or both in a society saturated with dog boutiques, trophy hunting, retro taxidermy, and eco-tourism. With brief forays into Algonquin Park and the heart of the 1980s jungle, the book largely draws its energy from the urban landscape, where the animals that interact with the environment have permanent effects on the land and human psyche. A wild deer wanders into the downtown core; the Galapagos and the ethics of conservation invade our Xbox; a mule grows weary of his unrewarding office job and unfulfilling relationships. Exploring the victories and defeats of an urban existence complete with 9-to-5 office angst, the claustrophobia of domestic partnerships in bachelor apartments, and party-and-pick-up culture, Decline of the Animal Kingdom is Laura Clarke’s love letter to the city of Toronto, and to extinct animals and office misfits alike.
Decline of the Animal Kingdom investigates modern constructs of domesticity, freedom, wilderness, and artificiality to paint a portrait of what it means to be human, animal, or both in a society saturated with dog boutiques, trophy hunting, retro taxidermy, and eco-tourism. With brief forays into Algonquin Park and the heart of the 1980s jungle, the book largely draws its energy from the urban landscape, where the animals that interact with the environment have permanent effects on the land and human psyche. A wild deer wanders into the downtown core; the Galapagos and the ethics of conservation invade our Xbox; a mule grows weary of his unrewarding office job and unfulfilling relationships. Exploring the victories and defeats of an urban existence complete with 9-to-5 office angst, the claustrophobia of domestic partnerships in bachelor apartments, and party-and-pick-up culture, Decline of the Animal Kingdom is Laura Clarke’s love letter to the city of Toronto, and to extinct animals and office misfits alike.
88 pages, Paperback
First published October 13, 2015
202 people want to read
About the author
Laura Clarke
1 book13 followersLaura Clarke’s work has appeared in a variety of publications including PRISM International, Grain, the National Post, and the Antigonish Review. She is the 2013 winner of the Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers from the Writers’ Trust of Canada. She lives in Toronto, Ontario.
Decline of the Animal Kingdom from ECW Press is her first poetry collection.
Decline of the Animal Kingdom from ECW Press is her first poetry collection.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
September 23, 2015
Bizarre, in-your-face poetry from a 30-year-old Canadian: business jargon, YouTube videos, fast food...and, yes, the animals the title heralds. Many of the poems feature mules and lions, including weird dialogues between a mule and its supervisor / domestic partner / psychiatrist.
With plays on words and a rather sexualized vocabulary, Clarke considers inter-species altruism and the inevitable slide towards extinction. “Project Isabela,” one of the more unusual ones, is structured like a video game, with different players on various levels figuring out what to do about the Galápagos Islands.
Two favorite lines:
Note: According to Clarke’s endnotes, the multi-part mule poem was inspired by Jerry Leath Mills’s essay about dead mules in Southern literature.
With plays on words and a rather sexualized vocabulary, Clarke considers inter-species altruism and the inevitable slide towards extinction. “Project Isabela,” one of the more unusual ones, is structured like a video game, with different players on various levels figuring out what to do about the Galápagos Islands.
Two favorite lines:
“You forget you live parallel to violence” (from “Carnivora”)
“The Tasmanian tiger live-tweets its extinction from the Hobart zoo in 1933” (from “Extirpation”)
Note: According to Clarke’s endnotes, the multi-part mule poem was inspired by Jerry Leath Mills’s essay about dead mules in Southern literature.
September 29, 2015
DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review
And that's how it goes, dear egg — just 'cause you're fertilized, there's no guarantee.
- Laura Clarke, Three-Domain System
Decline of the Animal Kingdom is a wonderful collection of poems that reads like a quilt feels. Textured, with patterns that start in one corner and end up somewhere you don't quite expect. Unlike a good quilt, though, DotAK is a thoroughly modern exercise: YouTube makes more than one appearance, for example (along with the drudgery of office work, land rights, and drainage issues). Despite disparate subjects – though mules stubbornly recur – the poems are neatly sewn together, weaving in and out of one another in a pleasing, referential way; a sort of coherence I haven't experienced before in my limited poetry reading.
I liked just about everything I read in the collection, though there were a few pieces I couldn't get a good grasp on. The experience was a bit like seeing a stained glass window from a half inch away: a vague awareness of intent, coupled with an inability to see any larger purpose and a few nice colours. That said, these bits of confusion were vastly outnumbered by poems I loved: John Picks Up, Three-Domain System, Bear Safety Tips for Semi-Regular Trips to a Cabin in Algonquin Park, and In Defense of My Buying Two Mules to Be Shot, Stuffed, and Exhibited at the American Museum of Agriculture in Lubbock, Teaxs stand out in particular.
I don't know if I'll read much more poetry – a lifetime of abstinence makes strong habits – but I can wholeheartedly recommend Decline of the Animal Kingdom.
And that's how it goes, dear egg — just 'cause you're fertilized, there's no guarantee.
- Laura Clarke, Three-Domain System
Decline of the Animal Kingdom is a wonderful collection of poems that reads like a quilt feels. Textured, with patterns that start in one corner and end up somewhere you don't quite expect. Unlike a good quilt, though, DotAK is a thoroughly modern exercise: YouTube makes more than one appearance, for example (along with the drudgery of office work, land rights, and drainage issues). Despite disparate subjects – though mules stubbornly recur – the poems are neatly sewn together, weaving in and out of one another in a pleasing, referential way; a sort of coherence I haven't experienced before in my limited poetry reading.
I liked just about everything I read in the collection, though there were a few pieces I couldn't get a good grasp on. The experience was a bit like seeing a stained glass window from a half inch away: a vague awareness of intent, coupled with an inability to see any larger purpose and a few nice colours. That said, these bits of confusion were vastly outnumbered by poems I loved: John Picks Up, Three-Domain System, Bear Safety Tips for Semi-Regular Trips to a Cabin in Algonquin Park, and In Defense of My Buying Two Mules to Be Shot, Stuffed, and Exhibited at the American Museum of Agriculture in Lubbock, Teaxs stand out in particular.
I don't know if I'll read much more poetry – a lifetime of abstinence makes strong habits – but I can wholeheartedly recommend Decline of the Animal Kingdom.
March 21, 2016
I really enjoyed this little book of poems, especially "Did You Know? Fun Facts About Mules." Clarke's mule poems as employees were also very entertaining. There were some great images and comparisons, all very surprising. Worth the read.
September 17, 2015
I received an ARC from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.
I don't know where to begin with this collection. Even with an MFA it was hard get gain a foothold in this messy jumble of words.
I don't know where to begin with this collection. Even with an MFA it was hard get gain a foothold in this messy jumble of words.
October 8, 2020
Decline of the Animal Kingdom by Laura Clarke is a collection of off-beat poetry. As it turns out, it is even more interesting than I expected. Heavy on the personified mules that seamlessly fill the role of typists and the envisioned revenge of a consumed lobster does not seem far fetched. Animals intertwine into the human world with a coherent personification.
There is a mesmerizing flow to the poems and a near-absurd abstraction to the writing. This all seems to add the fascination. The words roll and flow smoothly if not just to confer a message, but to create a rhythm and flux to the reading. There are times a reader can get lost in the words and trapped in the cadence.
I grew my arm hair in a brick pattern
and smoked against my neighbor's wall. Camouflage makes me
soulful but reckless e.g. eating cricket pie in plain daylight.
I foraged Tylenol 3s in the underbrush
from the old country, slept alone on fur pelts under karaoke signs.
Followed the moronic koala's example and spearheaded
evolutionary stomach voodoo, got addicted to one food that's
really hard to find and grows scarcely on mountaintops. The koala deserves to die like the Madagascar butterfly deserves
to be framed above my toilet...
You go with the leopards, and I'll stay with my lions. It's a pride thing....
The words themselves do not make the poetry but its combination with the tempo and pattern of the voice. I will say this is an odd collection of poetry, but odd in the same way as Pink Floyd's Darkside of the Moon. It strikes a certain chord in the observer that allows reality to be set aside and an alternate world to harmoniously emerge. I found this collection to be incredibly enjoyable to read and a collection that I won't grow tired of reading for a long tome to come. There is a battle between what is urban and what is nature and other themes. But what makes this so enjoyable to me is that I can get completely lost in the poems.
There is a mesmerizing flow to the poems and a near-absurd abstraction to the writing. This all seems to add the fascination. The words roll and flow smoothly if not just to confer a message, but to create a rhythm and flux to the reading. There are times a reader can get lost in the words and trapped in the cadence.
I grew my arm hair in a brick pattern
and smoked against my neighbor's wall. Camouflage makes me
soulful but reckless e.g. eating cricket pie in plain daylight.
I foraged Tylenol 3s in the underbrush
from the old country, slept alone on fur pelts under karaoke signs.
Followed the moronic koala's example and spearheaded
evolutionary stomach voodoo, got addicted to one food that's
really hard to find and grows scarcely on mountaintops. The koala deserves to die like the Madagascar butterfly deserves
to be framed above my toilet...
You go with the leopards, and I'll stay with my lions. It's a pride thing....
The words themselves do not make the poetry but its combination with the tempo and pattern of the voice. I will say this is an odd collection of poetry, but odd in the same way as Pink Floyd's Darkside of the Moon. It strikes a certain chord in the observer that allows reality to be set aside and an alternate world to harmoniously emerge. I found this collection to be incredibly enjoyable to read and a collection that I won't grow tired of reading for a long tome to come. There is a battle between what is urban and what is nature and other themes. But what makes this so enjoyable to me is that I can get completely lost in the poems.
November 22, 2022
very cool
one of my favorite poetry books that i have read in a while. its in your face it surprises its
about mules, a lot of mules and other animals. funny and actually original. i usually find it hard to relate to poetry that is in english cause i still understand so little even though i should be c1-c2 in english lol. but this book was like, i dont know, it felt like somebody from the next street wrote it, it felt real.
it gave a good amount of inspiration to try writing something in a similar way.
one of my favorite poetry books that i have read in a while. its in your face it surprises its
about mules, a lot of mules and other animals. funny and actually original. i usually find it hard to relate to poetry that is in english cause i still understand so little even though i should be c1-c2 in english lol. but this book was like, i dont know, it felt like somebody from the next street wrote it, it felt real.
it gave a good amount of inspiration to try writing something in a similar way.
January 23, 2020
I don't usually eat lobster but my boss was paying. I'm concerned about it reassembling itself inside my stomach, claw by hepatopancreas by thorax by eye.
August 7, 2023
La poesia di Laura Clarke è magnetica.
Irriverente, contemplativa e tenera, questa raccolta incuriosisce e delizia il lettore. L'ho adorato. Fantastico!!!
Irriverente, contemplativa e tenera, questa raccolta incuriosisce e delizia il lettore. L'ho adorato. Fantastico!!!
August 15, 2017
I picked this up in aid of National Poetry Day and... ho hum. I had expected so much from this book. After reading the synopsis on NetGalley, I had mistakenly set my expectations high and naturally, I was disappointed.
I really could not get into Clarke's style. I understand what she was trying to do - and I appreciate it - but I just did not feel connected to her words in the slightest. The content is indeed interesting; a clever combination of the natural world and twenty-first century millennialism. Think a mule in an office job watching YouTube videos of cute baby animals...
But, apart from a few single phrases, it just really wasn't for me. A great and exciting concept, but unfortunately it could have been executed a whole lot better.
Received for free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I really could not get into Clarke's style. I understand what she was trying to do - and I appreciate it - but I just did not feel connected to her words in the slightest. The content is indeed interesting; a clever combination of the natural world and twenty-first century millennialism. Think a mule in an office job watching YouTube videos of cute baby animals...
But, apart from a few single phrases, it just really wasn't for me. A great and exciting concept, but unfortunately it could have been executed a whole lot better.
Received for free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
December 28, 2017
I read this over the past several days. This was in fact the second time I picked the book up to read through it. To be honest, it just did not resonate with me.
I was riding with a friend and reading the poems aloud. We did get smiles from much of the imagery and were creeped out by more of the wording.
The author has talent in stringing words together.
It is designed for a selective, open minded audience.
I did not have any preconceived expectations but this just did not appeal to me as a general interest reader.
I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway and am grateful for the opportunity to experience it.
I was riding with a friend and reading the poems aloud. We did get smiles from much of the imagery and were creeped out by more of the wording.
The author has talent in stringing words together.
It is designed for a selective, open minded audience.
I did not have any preconceived expectations but this just did not appeal to me as a general interest reader.
I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway and am grateful for the opportunity to experience it.
August 15, 2016
After adding books to owned books[shelf goodreads provides] I lost ratings and review. Will attempt to add the review. Books won on goodreads giveaways that is missing review due to this are books I have enjoyed. On a later date I will attempt to remember what I have written about them and will rewrite them.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews