It’s not that Judith Beveridge’s poetic eye is without compassion – but it is, has always been, unblinking. She continues to stare even when the sight is shocking, and she tells us exactly what she sees.
The title poem of her first collection, The Domesticity of Giraffes (1987), has served my classes for years as a teaching example for writing non-human creatures. The poem does not resist some anthropomorphism, but it does succeed in making a powerful comment. Its description of a pair of giraffes trapped in a zoo enclosure is strong. This is especially true of its concluding image: one desolate giraffe lapping the urine stream of the other.
