I really struggled with this Strange Prompt, and found I wanted to do something that warped and played with language sounds first, and meaning second. Then I was reading Stress Fractures, a great book of essays from Penned In The Margins, and was reminded by Ross Sutherland’s essay about the potential for multiple Google-translations to invoke creative weirdification. So, I
- Looked up definitions of sentience
- Found a couple of quotes about animals, and race, including one by Jeremy Bentham
- Smooshed them together and ran the text through Google translate into several languages (Igbo, Shona, Maori, etc) and back into English
- Made the final version into a poem
Big thanks also go to Jules Clare, for this contribution:
Your experienced senses
Have their recompenses
In past and present tenses
Sitting on stable fencesFeathered winded eyes
Deceived by precise lies
Everything and everyone dies
Supermarket Sweep buysResplendent incisors taste
Portuguese Paella paste
Fluffy dough to baste
Interlopers lunch in wasteSometimes I feel your touch
Flagrantly too much
I ignore emotional feelings; I am butch
I am living life, not in a rushI always listen hard
I’m a poet, a bard
Reading from a scripted card
Placing an audience off guardI often smell like Hell
I’m saved by the bell
From a personal prison cell
Others find it hard to tellI am into personal space
Losing it is a disgrace
Winning an indescribable race
Vanishing with a traceI rely on my balance
Connected to my parlance
I am in the mood to dance
I prance and take a chanceI have experienced senses
They can’t break down my defences
Committing personal offences
They will suffer sensual consequences