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Michael Bazzett's avatar

This is lovely... Thank you!

Madelaine Lucas's avatar

Michael! Thank you for reading. I love your poem so much.

melissa jenks's avatar

In Madelaine's book also, "A Thirst for Salt," the dog functions as a proxy for human love, or something more or less complicated. Animal love laying on top of human love, complicating it. Read that too for more dog content :)

Madelaine Lucas's avatar

Melissa! Hi! Thank you for adding this. I do love a dog character, it’s true.

Girls on the Page's avatar

Beautiful letter, Madelaine. Bookmarking the Gaitskill essay. I've not read it yet, but have been told that Caroline Knapp's Pack of Two is a beautiful meditation on the human-animal bond as well. It really is one of the most special things in life, being taught and shown love by animals 🖤

Madelaine Lucas's avatar

Thank you for sharing this rec, which I look forward to seeking out! And, I completely agree. I used to teach a class on writing intimacy and one week was dedicated to animals. Always looking for new texts to add 🤍

Francesca Giacco's avatar

Beautiful. Dogs and horses have so much to teach us. One detail I especially love is that horses can remember us by our heartbeats and rhythm of our breathing 🤍

Madelaine Lucas's avatar

I didn’t know that but of course they can! 😭 Animal intuition is so deep, we have so much to learn indeed.

Destiny S. Harris's avatar

dogs and horses are by a long shot the best animals haha

Leila Lois's avatar

Thank you, this is beautiful, I will try to seek out Mare & Lost Cat 💕

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Jan 25
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Madelaine Lucas's avatar

I am so glad you’ve known this kind of love, too. Have been thinking a lot about animals and how they can teach us, from a very young age, to turn towards tenderness instead of cruelty or indifference.