NOËL SWEENEY

Albatross combines the hard-hitting triad of animal rights poetry in An Animal’s Charter and Blue-bird sings the Blues and Jungle Judge Justice within a single volume.

Together the anvil striking poems and tough calling-down prose encapsulate the practice and use in all aspects of our animal abuse. The subjects run the gamut suffered by our subjects from abattoirs to zoos, from trophy hunting to killing kangaroos and from fast fading mist gorillas to the appearance of serial killers.

Albatross shows the ones who fall at our feet as well as those we choose to wear and eat. The poetry of our legal animal slavery is compared to how we have treated others who are vulnerable too in the graphic connection between racism and sexism and speciesism. In doing so we see the pale imitation of camouflaged cruelty in the pursuit of our conspiratorial truth towards injustice.

Human rights are beyond price because with them we can live and die with dignity. Animal rights are denied by us yet they are essential for the selfsame reason. Animals must be members of rather than numbers in our society where they are mere statistics of misery. Their fate and fortune and future in our scheme is the broken-winged theme of Albatross.

They are very powerful poems: Animal Equality

The undercover agents are deeply moved by the poems: Mercy for Animals

It’s wonderful to see the intersectionality you’re exploring between societal issues and our environment: Claire L

Noël Sweeney certainly knows his stuff. You can tell he is passionate about the subject: Les S

These are very touching and beautiful poems: Animal Justice

Your poems are powerful and evocative works of art: Megan

Your beautiful and powerful poem: ‘A Whale of a Time’: Tiffany

‘A Creed for Claudette Colvin’ reminds me of the first time I read Steinbeck on Ruby Bridges walking to school. Ana S., an author and environmental activist.