POETRY REVIEW D H LAWRENCE TORTOISE SHOUT

The final poem in Lawrence’s six part study of the life and love making of a young tortoise.

Lawrence hears a sound he never imagined possible – a tortoise screaming. It is a gentle mew but nevertheless audible. Lawrence wonders if he is hearing a moan of sexual satisfaction or a death cry, and he compares the agony of orgasm to the savage pain of crucifixion, making the tortoise into a very unlikely messianic hero.

Lawrence recalls other animal cries and screams he has heard, from frogs, geese, rabbits, etc. He adds that in his youth, he once heard a woman screaming in her labour pains as she gave birth, which frightened him so much that he fled the scene. Lawrence now claims that all ofthose audio-experinces pale into insignificance beside the sound of the little tortoise in its yell of triumph or pain.

 Lawrence concludes the poem, and the series, by noting that a male (tortoise or human) concieving a son is in effect killing part of himself by detaching the sperm from its parent, and resurrecting himself in the birth to come. Sex is crucifixion – abizarre note on which to end a lovely and perhaps unique wildlife study.

Arthur Chappell