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My name is Padre Gautuma and for a year I worked as a school chaplain.
“And during that year, three times because I wrote a”
journey to time so I remembered, three times young people spoke to me, a version of experience where they had felt respected from one of their classmates or somebody at home or somebody in the school. And I don't know why there was something about when an 11-year-old or 12-year-old told me that they'd felt respected, that it really struck me,
because I wondered, what's the quality of encounter needed for a young person to feel and to know that they respected. And none of these young people were speaking about a sense of entitlement. They, you know, I'd demand to be respected.
“There was a deep sense of quiet huge in them that gave them”
post to reflect on what they wanted as a result of the respected.
I've never forgotten that and it has changed my relationship with that word
ever since. Karnay by Ruth Irope Sanabria. I've eaten pork from pernal to chiletas to chitterlings. I've dipped my hands in oily paper bags of deep fried gizzards and chicken hearts. I've swallowed raw clams and oysters.
I've eaten a stack of jellyfish cubes of crocodile. I've eaten pigeon and sparrow. I've eaten bad chicken. I've swallowed the shiny, salty, slimy, pink and pitch caviar out of tiny Russian tins.
I've eaten goat, bullbols and ox and catfish, swordfish, monkfish and salmon. I've eaten prawns and scooped blood stew and I've eaten red meat shredded, cubed, ground, boiled, fried, broiled, tough, tender, young and old pounded, breaded or wrapped in dough in filo, in tortilla nestled in the mashed potato, pletano, cornmeal or corn husk. Along in marinade, brain, burger, patty and barbecued intestines, I grew up with blood
on my bread, l who githol, the cows little juice reserved for the growing child, the scent of the steak on the skillet drew me to my mother when hungry. Periodically I turn, I refuse to take in flesh, a meal, a day or even years I go without.
When I first felt the rejection in my nine-year-old body, my mother bought me a shirt to honor
my conscience, pink with happy farm animals drawn in blue. I don't eat my friends, written across my young belly. There's a huge amount to be said about the language in this brilliant poem, and I'll get to that later, but first of all, it's the end I want to think about, the turn of the poem, the announced turn of the poem, where she says periodically I turn.
Ruth Erupa, Sanabria, starts off this great poem with a kind of a kernel description of a slaughterhouse of beasts and fish and animals of land and sea, and then dramatically,
“and musculially I think turns it to other animals, particularly ourselves and herself.”
So the speaker of the poem it feels like this must be autobiographical, but I'm not entirely sure, the speaker of the poem turns to themselves, a person who feels hunger, who's drawn to her mother when she feels hungry, felt the rejection in my nine-year-old body, as I would say, "My body is what we've been drawn into and my nine-year-old body."
And when I read this poem at the start, the first time I read it, I was kind of drawn
into the up-building of all of these lists and wondering where an earth is this going to go, and where it goes is in the direction of respect. My mother bought me a shirt to honor my conscience, that t-shirt, maybe, or a shirt. I don't know what it was, blue animals on a pink shirt, I can see it, and the poem has culminated in this deft turn toward respect, towards an animal from that animal's mother, respect
Towards a child from that child's mother.
I don't eat my friends written across my young belly.
“What a word to finish off with, I think of ways with them which sometimes an animal might”
be presented on a menu where it'll speak about the belly of that animal, and by drawing us into that reflection on the human body, suddenly the poem has turned around entirely. I didn't know where it was going to go, and I was thrilled and challenged and provoked by what it is that Ruth the Rupert-Sanabria does here. The book in which this poem is collected is called Beasts Behave in Foreign Land, and I think
of that is a kind of a book title in conversation with what it means to behave and change
your behavior or not behave, and what it means to be foreign or local, that somehow I got
“the impression by the title of the book that things were going to shift, that perspective”
is going to be messed around with, and the turn of this poem which is called the Vulta, it's a word in Italian from which we also get revolver or revolting or revote or revolution, the turn of this poem, the announced turn of this poem, comes so straightforwardly, comes so cleanly, and comes with a real dissent in the upbuilding tone of drama, and instead there is a certain kind of quietude that comes into this, a certain kind of silence.
I'm sure different people have different relationships with what the opening, the lengthy opening part of this poem is people who do eat meat might find it amusing or entertaining or people who have chosen enough to might find it off putting or distasteful, but certainly the overwhelming nature of this building list of animals, of beasts, draws you in, draws you in with fascination, maybe a terrible fascination, or maybe a delighted fascination.
The verbs too are really compelling, eaten, dipped, swallowed, and then this long list, like a cacophony of them shredded, cubed, ground, boiled, fried, broiled, pounded, braided, wrapped, nestled, barbecued, and then there's other verbs too that come in, grew up,
and reserved, and drew me, and turned, and refused, and I go, I first felt, bought, drawn,
I don't eat, written. All these verbs change, especially towards the end, that somehow the relationship of language regarding power, about who's doing what verb to the other, breathing being in the first
“part are really one-sided, but I think, certainly, in the economy of this poem, they”
change very particularly. There's an adjective that stands alone, technically it's called an "adverbial modifier," "hungry," and it feels to me like that word "hungry" is one of the things that changes the poem, one of the ways within which the energy of the poem reaches a hinge, and then goes back in itself, and goes in a different direction, and our eyes are brought to look
at something different, and suddenly it isn't just the person who was eaten a lot in their life. We are brought back to look at that person, but also to look at that person as they look at themselves, especially at this particular period of life when they were only nine. I keep thinking about that line, "dreamy to my mother," "wain-hungry," and I wonder,
"what is the hunger for," food, obviously, that's the context of the poem, and here, "elogetho, the juices, the meat that's on the skillet," stopped up with bread, maybe. But what comes after the scene where the mother respects her daughter's choice to stop eating meat, and even buys her a shirt to honor her conscience, that scene makes me revisit and goes back to the line that, for me, anyway, holds the twist, the turn, the vulta,
"dreamy to my mother, when hungry," and I wonder, "what else is this young pe...
hungry for?" It seems to me that certainly based on what comes after that, the young
“person is hungry for what it might mean to expand your mind independently, and to think”
and to challenge yourself, not just to be challenged or challenge other people, but to challenge yourself, and to do that with a deep sense of independence, but loved independence, safe independence, even to go against what your family is eating, and what it is that they're choosing to eat, and to be able to go against your family without losing your family, and for that, to be celebrated, and valued, and seen, and respected, and even more than respected,
in the verb that this poem employs, to be honored, and the other word that goes along with that, is that your conscience is seen, what an extraordinary thing, conscience, and
honor, certainly this poem deepens into a powerful sense of how is it that we are with each
“other, and that, I think, to feel like your choice and your conscience is honored in a place”
of love, especially when you're exhibiting some kind of challenge, or some kind of a change, that means perhaps that you might be able to internalize it, and honor yourself, and presumably, and hopefully, with this demonstrate that as an honouring of others too. One of the things I know about Ruth, Ruth, is that she's an educator, she's a teacher in New Jersey, I believe, and it does not surprise me, because it feels to me like this
is a poem written from the point of view of someone who knew what it was like to receive
this, and who spends every day, it seems to me, I know I'm projecting, but I think it's
probably a true projection, who spends every day figuring out what it means to demonstrate honour for the conscience, and independence, and safety, and growth, and imagination of young people.
“I think to feel that your choice is honored, that your conscience is valued and seen, and that”
at a young age, to make a choice that's going in a different direction than your family might, that means that you might be able to internalize what it means to hold honour for yourself, to hold honour for other people, and to share that, and to see that as a core feature that might shape a young life, and shape a full adult life as well. Back again to the final words of the poem, "My young belly," it is a way of inscribing
a value of herself, "my young belly," "my," it's almost like, during the abattoir of the early part of the poem, saying, "Pay attention to this, pay attention to what it is that I choose to wear upon the meat of my own body as a respect and a reflection on what it is that the meat of my body contains, namely a person, namely a being, namely conscience, namely honour, namely love."
Carney, by Ruth Erupe Sanibria, I've eaten pork from Perneal to Chuletta's to Chitterlings. I've dipped my hands in oily paper bags of deep fried gizzards and chicken hearts. I've swallowed raw clams and oysters. I've eaten a stack of jellyfish, cubes of crocodile. I've eaten pigeon and sparrow.
I've eaten bad chicken. I've swallowed the shiny, salty, slimy pink and pitch caviar out of tiny Russian tins. I've eaten goat, bullballs and ox and catfish, swordfish, monkfish and salmon. I've eaten prawns and scooped blood stew and I have eaten red meat, shredded, cubed, ground boil, fried, broiled, tough, tender, young and old, pounded, breaded, or wrapped in dough,
in filo, in tortilla, nestled in the mashed potato, platano, cornmeal or corn husk. Tongue in marinade, brain burger, patty and barbecued intestines. I grew up with blood on my bread, Elhu Githu, the cows little juice reserved for the growing child. The scent of the steak on the skillet drew me to my mother when hungry.
Periodically, I turn, I refuse to take in flesh, a meal, a day, or even years I go without.
When I first felt the rejection in my nine-year-old body, my mother bought me...
my conscience, pink with happy farm animals drawn in blue.
“I don't eat my friends, written across my young belly.”
Carnet by a Ruth-Iruppe Sanabria appears in Beasts Behave in foreign land, published in 2017 by Red Hen Press.
Thanks to them for permission to use this poem and to Frederick Courtwright of the Permissions
Company.
“Potri and bound is Andrea Provo, Carlos Anoni, Gerald Chen, Sparrow Murray, Chris Hegel, Bill”
Sigma and me, Rodrigo Tuma.
Our music is composed and provided by Gotham Shrikishan and Blue Doubt Sessions.
These episodes were made in New York City on Unceded Lennapiland, special thanks to Wilseau
“and Neyvian and Adam Morelle at Digital Island Studios in Manhattan.”
Thanks as well to Frederick Courtwright of the Permissions Company. Potri and bound is an independent, non-profit production of the Unbeing Project, founded and led by Christopher. This season of Potri and bound is made possible by a grant from the Henry loose foundation. Our other funding partners include the Leon of Foundation, the Bideal Foundation and Engaging
the Census Foundation. Potri and bound would be nothing without the listening community. Thanks to all who listen, who read and give through our weekly Potri and bound sub-stack or directly to Unbeing. For links to the sub-stack and to find out more about Potri and bound books and events, visit
Potri and bound.org. [BLANK_AUDIO]
