Finding Vegan Poetics: Literature For Nonhumans As An Ecofeminist Response To Carnism

Abstract

This thesis is my journey to finding and defining vegan poetics, a term I employ to define poetry that exhibits a vegan perspective through witnessing the mass slaughter of nonhuman animals and exposing the connection between the factory farming industry and climate change. As an example of vegan poetics, I present Gabriel Gudding’s 2015 poetry collection Literature for Nonhumans as exhibiting a fusion of vegan ideology and poetic technique. To analyze Gudding’s text, this thesis employs ecofeminist theory along with scholarship from the developing field of vegan studies to foster a discourse on what it means to write poetry in opposition to “carnism,” a term referring to the culture surrounding meat-eating. In short, Literature for Nonhumans provides entrance into the institution of the slaughterhouse and, in turn, introduces a comprehensive vegan worldview through the genre of poetry