‘zoo mensch zoo dier’: zoöpoëtica en zoöpolitiek in de poëzie van Ramsey Nasr

Abstract

This contribution focuses on the long poem ‘zoo mensch zoo dier’ (2005) by Ramsey Nasr, which the then city poet of Antwerp wrote about the local zoo. It deals with animals in captivity and changing cultural representations of animals, also in relation to other communities. Drawing on cultural animal studies, supplemented by perspectives from zoo studies, we examine three dimensions of the zoo issue in Nasr's poem: first, the historical representation of the zoo as a framework, with a focus on power relations between humans and animals and the cultural construction of nature; secondly, human-animal metaphors and the way in which Nasr invokes migration and multiculturalism with a view to new forms of representation and social interactions; and finally, animalisation and multispecies experience as crucial components of a zoopoetics that is also zoopolitically charged.