Dog Poo, an Environmental Tragedy
In 1915, William Carlos Williams published a poem about dog waste. When industrial fertilizer replaced dung heaps, its spoils helped fund the spread of plastics. “Pastoral” shuns rural landscape in favor of a city scene, with an old man walking in the gutter. In Williams’s assessment, the man “gathering dog lime”—a euphemistic name for dog dung—does work “more majestic than / That of the episcopal minister.”
A 21st-century reader would likely find the man’s action unremarkable. Today, dog feces are understood to have dangerous levels of E. Coli and salmonella, not to mention untold parasites. Therefore, they must be tucked away in plastic bags and deposited at the nearest poop station. Williams’s old man is significant for his dignity but not his occupation.
