Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Carter Revard’s "Skins as Old Testament" is a profound meditation on the primal and spiritual dimensions of wearing and using the skins of other creatures. The poem traces the act of donning animal pelts back to its ancient, almost mythic origins, evoking both the survivalist necessity and the profound interconnection between humans and the animals they hunt. Through layered imagery and historical echoes, Revard suggests that the wearing of skins is more than an act of survival—it is a sacred, almost ritualistic inheritance, one that ties humanity to its deepest past and its enduring moral dilemmas.

The title immediately suggests an analogy between animal skins and sacred texts. The Old Testament, as a foundational religious and historical document, carries weighty connotations of law, sacrifice, and divine order. By likening skins to scripture, Revard imbues them with a sense of revelation—something to be read, interpreted, and understood as a testament to existence. The poem does not explicitly invoke biblical narratives, but the title primes the reader to view the imagery that follows as something spiritually significant, as if the history of humans using animal skins is itself a holy record of transformation, transgression, and survival.

The opening lines—"Wonder who first slid in to use another creature's skin for staying warm"—set the stage for an exploration of origins. The phrasing makes this act seem both casual and monumental, as though slipping into a pelt were both an everyday practicality and an act of great historical consequence. The phrase "blood-smeared heresy almost" immediately complicates the idea. The use of another creature’s skin is not framed as mere utility; it is a near-sacrilegious act, one that blurs the boundaries between hunter and prey, between the living and the dead. The hunter becomes the deer, the shepherd the lamb—figures that, in both primal and biblical terms, hold profound significance.

Revard conjures the ancient cave paintings of Dordogne, where prehistoric humans depicted the animals they hunted in fire-lit sanctuaries. This reference suggests that the act of hunting and wearing skins was more than just survival—it was a spiritual transformation, an acknowledgment of the animal’s continued presence even in death. This idea is reinforced by the phrase "crawling inside the deer's still-vivid presence there," a visceral image that conveys both physical immersion and a deeper merging of identities. The hunter does not merely take the deer’s life; he inhabits its form, wrapping himself in the musk of the animal, merging with it even as he consumes it.

The poem shifts from prehistory to more intimate, elemental sensations—the experience of rolling up "in a seal-skin self beneath a mammoth heaven." The vastness of this "mammoth heaven" reinforces the prehistoric setting, suggesting the Ice Age landscapes where early humans sought shelter under animal skins, their survival dependent on the creatures they hunted. Revard’s imagery of ice, snow, and tallow flame evokes a world where warmth and life are fragile, dependent on the borrowed forms of other beings. The sensory details—feet growing warm even on ice, hands cradling a flame—emphasize the bodily experience of returning to life through the heat provided by an animal’s fur. This return to warmth, framed as a "tingling revelation," underscores the spiritual dimension of the act: wearing another creature’s skin is not just practical, but transformative, as though life itself is being transferred between species.

The poem culminates in a moment of profound intimacy: "still deeper when human bodies coupling in a bear's dark fur found winter's warmth and then its child within the woman came alive." Here, the use of animal skins transcends mere survival and enters the realm of creation and renewal. The bear’s fur, once a remnant of death, becomes a sanctuary for new life. This moment suggests that the act of wearing skins is not merely about protection from the cold but is interwoven with the continuity of life itself. The warmth of the fur facilitates human closeness, and from this closeness, a child is conceived. The cycle is complete—death sustains life, and life in turn perpetuates itself.

Revard’s poem does not pass judgment on this ancient practice; instead, it immerses the reader in the physical and spiritual reality of it. The absence of punctuation, the fluidity of the images, and the lack of a rigid narrative structure mirror the seamless way in which life and death, human and animal, past and present flow into one another. The poem suggests that to wear the skin of another is to inherit its life force, to partake in a lineage of transformation that stretches back to humanity’s earliest days. In "Skins as Old Testament," survival, spirituality, and the body’s memory are all bound together in the enduring, weighty truth of existence: we live through what came before us, and we carry it forward in our own skins.

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