Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Michael McClure’s "Cheetah" is a brief yet profound meditation on the connection between humans and animals, blurring the lines between species and suggesting a deeper kinship than we typically acknowledge. With his characteristic fusion of biological observation and poetic reverence, McClure portrays the cheetah not as an exotic or alien creature, but as something fundamentally familiar—a being that reflects humanity back to itself in ways we might not expect.

The poem’s opening declaration—"See the face of a beautiful and highly intelligent child in the profile of the cheetah."—immediately establishes the central theme: the recognition of human qualities in nonhuman animals. Rather than viewing the cheetah as a wild predator, McClure invites the reader to see innocence, intelligence, and sensitivity—traits typically ascribed to human children. The suggestion that the cheetah's face holds the beauty and wisdom of a child subverts conventional notions of hierarchy between species, challenging the idea that human intelligence is unique or superior. Instead, the poem posits a shared consciousness, a fundamental likeness between us and the natural world.

The line—"SHE IS BEYOND ALL GOOD and EVIL"—elevates the cheetah beyond human moral constructs, positioning her as a creature of pure existence, unburdened by the ethical dilemmas that plague human life. This echoes a frequent theme in McClure’s poetry: the notion that animals embody a kind of primal purity, existing outside of the social and moral frameworks that complicate human experience. Unlike humans, the cheetah is neither virtuous nor corrupt—she simply is, and in this state of being, she represents something both admirable and enviable.

The next image—"The black stripes at the tip of her tail twitch and she closes her eyes as my mother used to do, with pleasure."—brings the poem to a deeply personal level. By linking the cheetah’s relaxed pleasure to a memory of his mother, McClure dissolves the boundary between species in an even more intimate way. This moment suggests that pleasure, comfort, and even familial tenderness are not exclusively human experiences but are shared across the animal kingdom. The subtle movement of the cheetah’s tail and the closing of her eyes become gestures of connection, evoking a universal sense of warmth and recognition.

The presence of the cheetah’s young—"Her three large kittens nod and grin in the sun."—reinforces this theme of shared experience, presenting the cheetah’s offspring as playful, expressive, and affectionate. The idea that they grin in the sun, though likely a figurative interpretation, further aligns them with human emotions, implying joy, contentment, and familial love. In these descriptions, McClure challenges the rigid distinctions between human and animal consciousness, presenting the cheetah and her kittens as beings capable of pleasure, care, and self-expression.

The poem’s final statement—"What is human is so much more obvious in beings with tails."—is both playful and profound. At first glance, it seems paradoxical—tails are one of the defining physical traits that separate most animals from humans. But McClure suggests that precisely because animals retain these ancient, undomesticated traits, their essential humanness—their intelligence, their emotions, their capacity for connection—is easier to see. Without the distractions of human culture, technology, or language, the core aspects of being alive—awareness, play, desire, sensation—are more visible in animals than in humans themselves.

Set in Samburu, Kenya, a region known for its wildlife and deep indigenous traditions, "Cheetah" subtly alludes to a world where humans and animals coexist more visibly. This setting underscores the idea that modern, industrialized humanity has distanced itself from its own animal nature, while in places like Samburu, the bond between species remains more apparent. The poem, then, is not just an observation of a cheetah but a call to recognize the humanity within nature and, by extension, the animality within ourselves.

McClure’s "Cheetah" is a striking example of his ability to weave poetic vision with biological reverence. In just a few lines, he collapses the divide between species, presenting the cheetah not as a distant other but as a fellow traveler in the experience of life. The poem suggests that, in recognizing the human in animals, we might also rediscover the animal in ourselves—not as something primitive or lesser, but as something essential, intuitive, and beautifully real.

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