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Hyena

Like something out
of Brueghel, maned in white
and hungry
like the dark, the bat
ears pricked, the face
a grey

velour, more cat
than dog, less
caracal
than fanalouc
or civet –

here is the patron beast
of all
who love the night:
waking at dusk
to anatomy’s
blunt hosanna,

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Vol. 33 No. 15 · 28 July 2011

Much as I enjoyed John Burnside’s poem ‘Hyena’, I must point out that he has his hyenas crossed (LRB, 30 June). The ‘giggle’ and pack behaviour referred to in the final stanza suggests the spotted (or ‘laughing’) hyena, but the first stanza (white mane, grey face, bat ears) describes the striped hyena, a solitary animal which does not ‘laugh’.

Mikita Brottman
Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore

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