This article proposes a “blattopoetic” analysis of Lorna Crozier’s poem “The Cockroach,” from her 2017 collection What the Soul Doesn’t Want. Set within the framework of zoopoetics and literary studies of animals, this interpretation draws on concepts such as disgust, anthropomorphism and mindful listening, and examines how
Crozier’s poem challenges the revulsion that often defines the relationship between insects and humans. One of the article’s premises is that, in this way, the poem opens up space for empathetic, interspecies contact and transforms the cockroach into a co-creator of poetic meanings. The Canadian author’s text allows for an imagined “touch” without disgust, critiquing the anthropocentric boundaries between human and nonhuman experience. Here, the cockroach becomes a material-semiotic – untouchable yet central – poetic presence.
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