Creaturely texts, texts on creatures

This essay explores the possibility of thinking of some texts as creaturely, basing itself on Anat Pick's definition of the creaturely as the condition of embodiment and finitude which we share with all living beings. Some texts, especially poetic texts on creatures, can be said to be embodied because they are both fully and openly textual and yet striving to render a sense of their object's presence in the world. This version of textual embodiment inevitably conveys a sense of finitude through the texts' acknowledgement that they can never be anything else than texts. Both embodied and finite, these texts appear creaturely themselves. The author discusses poems by Gary Snyder, Les Murray and Wallace Stevens.