[the Writing of Kuypers]    [JanetKuypers.com]    [Bio]    [Poems]    [Prose]


video See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Gouge Out Their Eyes” within her “This is a Poem About” chapbook and read from the v5 cc&d boss lady poetry collection book “On the Edge”, then her 2019 poems “Eliminating the Endangered Species List” (written on National Panda Day) and “Kind of Like a City” at “Recycled Reads” in Austin 4/20/19 (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
video See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Gouge Out Their Eyes” within her “This is a Poem About” chapbook and read from the v5 cc&d boss lady poetry collection book “On the Edge”, then her 2019 poems “Eliminating the Endangered Species List” (written on National Panda Day) and “Kind of Like a City” at “Recycled Reads” in Austin 4/20/19 (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
video See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Value of π” (written on 3/14, on & for π day) and “Eliminating the Endangered Species List” (written on 3/16, on & for National Panda Day), both read from her poetry book “Every Event of the Year (Volume one: January-June)”, then her prose poem “Exactly Where She Belonged (dreams 2/29/20)”, during the “Poetic License open mic 3/1/20”, while hosting “Poetic License” monthly at Austin’s “Recycled Reads” (video from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; also posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr.
video See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Value of π” (written on 3/14, on & for π day) and “Eliminating the Endangered Species List” (written on 3/16, on & for National Panda Day), both read from her poetry book “Every Event of the Year (Volume one: January-June)”, then her prose poem “Exactly Where She Belonged (dreams 2/29/20)”, during the “Poetic License open mic 3/1/20”, while hosting “Poetic License” monthly at Austin’s “Recycled Reads” (video from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera; also posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr.
video See a YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Join Me”, “Easier and Easier”, “Eliminating the Endangered Species List”, “Etching, Scribbling, Drawing”, and “Didn’t Think Anything of It” from the cc&d 3/21 v307 book “Too Many Humans & Not Enuf Souls...” 3/3/21, during the usual time for Austin’s “Community Poetry” open mic (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr).  #janetkuypers #janetkuyperspoetry #janetkuypersbookreading
video See a Facebook live video stream of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Join Me”, “Easier and Easier”, “Eliminating the Endangered Species List”, “Etching, Scribbling, Drawing”, and “Didn’t Think Anything of It” from the cc&d 3/21 v307 book “Too Many Humans & Not Enuf Souls...” 3/3/21, during the usual time (1:00-3:00 PM CST) for Austin’s “Community Poetry” open mic (this video was filmed and streamed from a Samsung S9 camera).   #janetkuypers   #janetkuyperspoetry   #janetkuypersbookreading
video See this YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Eliminating the Endangered Species List” from the “Too Many Humans & Not Enuf Souls...” section of the Scars Publications 1-4 2021 cc&d issue collection book “What Lies on the Other Side” 5/27/21 at Austin Poetry Society’s “New World Poetry” open mic (video from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, and Tumblr).  #janetkuypers #janetkuyperspoetry #janetkuypersbookreading
video See this Facebook live video stream of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Eliminating the Endangered Species List” from the “Too Many Humans & Not Enuf Souls...” section of the Scars Publications 1-4 2021 cc&d issue collection book “What Lies on the Other Side” 5/27/21 at Austin Poetry Society’s “New World Poetry” open mic; (this video was filmed and streamed from a Samsung S9 camera). #janetkuypers #janetkuyperspoetry #janetkuypersbookreading

Eliminating the
Endangered Species List

Janet Kuypers
3/16/19 (written on National Panda Day)

It’s strange to think
that some of the animals
Americans enjoy eating today
verged in America on being
endangered species.

But this makes sense —
when Americans first came
to these pristine lands, it was
their first inclination to go
slaughter with impunity.

I’ve seen it in history,
when British Frigate ships
first discovered the Galapagos
Islands, they thought that
those giant tortoises

were the perfect food-
source, so they would flip
these giant animals onto their
backs and have so much
food to get home.

And in the U.S.,
bison and buffalo were
on the endangered species list
because of my husband’s
great-great uncle,

and Buffalo Bill,
and others in the “great
frontier”, with their great mass-
shooting ability. And
on the east coast,

labor workers at
the docks would eat
the lobsters that seemed so
common on the shores,
that they were almost

considered garbage
no one else would bother
to consume. But now that we’ve
stripped the land and the
seas dry of what we

now call precious
animals, we revere them
for food, and mass market them
so humans can be always
enjoying these once

common and now
rare animals on the planet
for mass consumption once again.
Over history, we humans
have learned how to

exploit markets,
I mean, utilize markets,
so they work to our advantage,
so that everyone gets
what they “want”.

Which is why
I wonder now, on National
Panda Day, when the endangered
animal now on the Red List
of threatened species,

why people haven’t
taken my best friend’s idea
seriously, in making animals on the
endangered species list
a delicacy. Because

if we do that, then all
these gluttonous Americans
will want to make sure that these
pandas are available on the
market for their

consumption, at their
leisure — because when it
comes to supply and demand, that
truly is the American way.
Now, I’m a vegetarian,

and although I can say
I’m all for saving a species,
I wonder if us people with out big
brains and our opposable
thumbs at the top of

the intellectual food
chain, I wonder if slaughtering
some animals for later consumption
can actually save a species from
extinction. If a vegetarian

can consider the choice,
and wonder why, if a burger
joint sells burgers, why Panda Express
can’t sell Panda meat, then
maybe we have to

re-evaluate how to
save every species on the
planet after all. Which lives are worth
saving, one can wonder, when
trying to save a species.


Copyright © Janet Kuypers.

All rights reserved. No material
may be reprinted without express permission.



Like Janet Kuypers’ writing on any of these links below:

Add to Twitter    Add to Facebook    Add to digg    Add to Del.icio.us    Add to Google Bookmarks    Add to Mister Wong    Add to reddit    Add to Stumble Upon    Add to Technorati






my hand to an anim of jkchair



Kuypers at Artvilla


scars publications


Kuypers writing