Otters and Others: Ted Hughes to John Kinsella

Abstract Attitudes to animals and their relationship with the human have undergone significant changes over last six decades, from rise of environmental movement debates about genetic modification. Poetry has responded these developments but also contributed argument activism. This essay aims make sense this history its literary consequences by investigating representation otters in work a series poets Ted Hughes John Kinsella. Shape-shifting, elusive, never entirely other, allow writers negotiate fluid boundary between animal value what is wild. They enable explorations sexuality, attraction as re-makers geography, risk all life forms posed pollution nuclear contamination. By analysing range Britain Ireland, some attention American Australian contexts international Bio Art, discussion clarify both how views natural been reconfigured shifts animate very different kinds verse, formality Seamus Heaney Alice Oswald late modernism Colin Simms Maggie O’Sullivan.