Decolonial Animal Ethics in Linda Hogan’s Poetry and Prose. Towards Interspecies Thriving by Małgorzata Poks (Book Review)

Abstract

Małgorzata Pok’s Decolonial Animal Ethics in Linda Hogan’s Poetry and Prose: Towards Interspecies Thriving (2023) focuses on the relationship between the modern, hierarchical, anthropocentric view of non-human animals, and the traditional, relational view in Indigenous ontologies. In dialogue with human-animal studies, decolonial studies, and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), the study provides an in-depth engagement with the literary authorship of Chickasaw poet and novelist Linda Hogan. The questions that Poks asks are: What is the significance of Indigenous knowledges for the Anthropocene? How do these knowledges relate to the extinction of species and environmental grief? What insights are offered by Indigenous ethics to activists and decision makers in this regard? Despite the scope of Hogan’s production there is not much written about her literary production, Poks claims, even less so about the representation of the human-animal relationship in it. This is a lack which Poks makes up for in a thorough investigation of Hogan’s prose and poetry from the 1970’s until today. In Hogan’s works, themes like mercy, compassion, wildness, grief, and the connection between femininity and animality are in constant dialogue with the painful story of Indigenous America. Through Hogan’s own experiences in life, her description of places like Oklahoma and Colorado gain both material and metaphorical qualities. This is also the case with the landscapes and the non-human animals who inhabit them and who become agents in their own right in a constant yet shifting and transformative relationship to the human, who is thus decentered in effective ways.