Fifteen Dogs

each of the poems in Fifteen Dogs contains one of the dogs’ names.

the sheer pleasure of some great thing could not be expressed otherwise,

Death was in every fibre of these creatures. It was hidden in their languages and at the root of their civilizations. You

On the one hand, power; on the other, love.

the death of a language would mean the death of its poetry.

He had been selfish in trying to keep his language pure; better it had been influenced by another tongue than that it disappear altogether.

Over the years, he thought about a thousand things, but two questions occupied most of his time. The first was about humanity. What, he wondered, did it mean to be human? The question was, ultimately, impossible for him to answer.

Bach’s music was like having needles prick you from the inside.

Why do cats always smell like cats? – Oh look! A squirrel!