POETRY: KATE SUTHERLAND

SOUTHERN GASTRIC-BROODING FROG
Rheobatrachus silus
 
collected by David S. Liem
Australia
1972
 
adult male
38.4 mm snout to vent
 
slate-coloured
smooth, slimy skin
prominent eyes, black
with gold spots
round blunt snout
jaws close snap
 
inhabit boulder-strewn
streams, spend days
submerged
 
summer rains initiate breeding
 
females swallow
fertilized eggs, tadpoles
develop in the stomach, are birthed
through the mother’s mouth
fully-formed froglets spew forth
 
1978 summer rains late
1979 rains very late
1980 & 1981 rains late again
 
last seen in the wild December 1979
last captive frog died November 1983
Extinct


 

THE CALL OF THIS SPECIES
 
 
The grunting of a pig     a hen cackling     the bleat of a sheep
the low bellow of an ox     a cricket singing near the water
a dog’s bark     a duck quacking     young crows cawing
a delicate insect-like tinkle     a broken banjo string
a finger running over the small teeth of a comb
a squeaky door being slowly opened     a carpenter’s hammer
the tapping of paddles on the side of a canoe     a cough
a watch being wound     a nasal snarl
a low-pitched snore     two marbles being struck together
sleigh bells     the clangor of a blacksmith's shop
 
P-r-r-r-     pip-pip-pip-pip     poo-poo-poo-poo-poo-poo
purrrreeeek     cr, cr, cr     cre-e-e-e-e-e-p, cre-e-e-e-e-e-p
pst-pst-pst     queenk, queenk     eeek!     kraw, kraw, kraw    
jwah, jwah     ah, ah, ah, ah     krack, krack, krack     
ca-ha-ha-ac, ca-ha-ha-ac, ca-ha-ha-ac     pé-pé, pé-pé    
kle-kle-kle-klee     cran, cran, cran, c-r-r-en, c-r-r-en 
creck-creck-creck     cut-cut-cut-cut     ric-up, ric-up, ric-up
ru-u-u-ummm ru-u-u-ummm     grrruut-grrruut-grrruut-grrruut
grau, grau     gick, gick, gick, gick     tschw, tschw, tschw    
wurrk, wur-r-r-k     trint-trint     tr-r-r-onk tr-r-r-onk, tr-r-r-onk!
 
The call of this species has not been recorded



 
THREATS
 
fragmentation of forest    
clearance of cloud forest
movement of the cloud layer up the mountainside
timber harvesting    
landslides    
ice in the montane grasslands
late rains   
severe dry seasons
drought-related increases in evaporation
successive fires extending deeper into the rainforest
slash-and-burn agriculture    
cattle grazing    
illicit crops
irrigation practices    
illegal mining    
guerrilla activities
construction of a dam upstream
construction of a cable car
pesticides used in maize farming upstream    
airborne pollution
conversion of habitat into a golf course    
Las Vegas
invasion of mist flower   
introduction of the Bullfrog    
non-native trout    
safari ants    
feral pigs    
lack of genetic diversity    
heavy parasite loads    
exportation for the pet trade
stress due to handling for data collection    
over-collecting
chytridiomycosis
chytridiomycosis
chytridiomycosis
 

The Bones Are There
​Kate Sutherland
Book*hug, 2020

Zigzagging across the globe, Kate Sutherland’s fourth book is poetry by way of collage: pieced-together excerpts from travellers’ journals, ships’ logs, textbooks and manuals, individual testimony, and fairy and folk tales that tell stories of the extinction of various species, and of the evolution human understanding of—and culpability for—the phenomenon. Across its three sections, Sutherland draws identifiable connections between various animal extinctions and human legacies of imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, and misogyny, charting the ways in which they juxtapose one another while impacting the natural order of things.

A trenchant critique of humanity’s disastrous effects on this world, The Bones Are There is also a celebration of incredible creatures, all sadly lost to us. It honours their memory by demanding accountability and encouraging resistance, so that we might stave off future irrevocable loss and preserve what wonders remain.

Kate Sutherland lives in Toronto where she writes poems, makes collages, and teaches law. She is the author of three books: Summer Reading (winner of a Saskatchewan Book Award), All In Together Girls, and How to Draw a Rhinoceros (shortlisted for a Creative Writing Book Award by the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment). A new collection of poems, The Bones Are There, is forthcoming from Book*hug Press in Fall 2020. These three poems are part of a longer sequence about extinct frog species which will appear in its entirety in the new collection.