Consider the seahorse – short film
Filed under: Poetry
RSL in partnership with ZSL Authors for Animals programme welcomed Sir Andrew Motion to the aquarium for his talk ‘Consider The Seahorse’. This is an excerpt from the talk where he reads his new poem 'Histories of the Sea Horse', written specially for the event.
Seahorses are among the most popular species at London Zoo, and they provide a crucial barometer in measuring the health of the oceans. Yet comparatively little is known about them. Opening the third season of writers’ talks at the zoo, Authors for Animals, former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion considers a creature with a rich mythical existence, and a real life that is at once beautiful, intriguing and precarious. In an event introduced by the poet Jo Shapcott, herself a passionate conservationist, a ZSL keeper tells anecdotes about seahorses’ habits and husbandry, and a ZSL scientist talks about threats to the species and work being done to support seahorses in the wild. Andrew Motion then responds to the creatures imaginatively, reading from his poetry about this curious, beguiling species, and giving us his own take on its importance to humanity.
Recorded on: April 29, 2015
Recorded at: ZSL London Zoo
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