Скачать или смотреть Brechtje // Endangered (performed by Fiona McGown & Célia Oneto Bensaïd, 2017)

Endangered examines an incident in May 2016, when a little boy of 3,5 years old climbed into the cage of a gorilla. Under high pressure and panic, the American Zoo officials shot and killed gorilla Harambe. Even though the gorilla grasped the boy, the boy wasn’t injured. Akua Lezli Hope, a New York-based poet, wrote a strong reflection on this event. On how the population of gorillas decimates, how people should work to have wildlife in wild lands, how people put this gorilla in the zoo and killed it. But also on how understandable it is that this boy was prioritized in that horrible situation. It impressed me to see how strikingly Akua managed to put the versatility of perspectives into words.

This song was commissioned by the International Student LiedDuo Competition and was performed by 12 duo's on April 22, '17 at Prins Claus Conservatorium in Groningen.

Endangered
by Akua Lezli Hope

if it were my thing
my stupid lump of boy flesh
rushing heedless, endangered
to thrill to explore
what was not his
never his always his for the taking
my someday scion
my heir apparent
my never reproached
rarely admonished
my beamish boy unattended
unhaltered
my twinkling toddler
unwatched
my future maker of grandchildren
poison apple of my sty eye
my pride and joy
my fine young man
my gutter cleaner, yard mower, dog walker
my consumer of mass quantities
my someday quarterback, my bedwetter
rug rat, crumbsnatcher, piglet,
my big diaper guy, my little monkey

if if if
I would’ve shot that gorilla, too
while I wailed and boohooed
and didn’t look, couldn’t look, wouldn’t watch
his possible demise
but it wasn’t my idiot
tumbling where he didn’t belong
trespassing on another ‘s territory
not mine lacking the sense he should have been born with
not mine slung like a sack through the green moat
not mine baptized to the possibilities of fate
ensnaring the innocent silverback,
born protector of his dwindling few
in the continuing death dance
of human caprice