Hunting with Eagles, West Mongolia, 2016

Publication Instance Details #1615

Publication Overview

Translation	Is Multilingual	Explicit Irish Context?	Ekphrasis	Has Paratext?	Reference to News, Media or Technology
No	No	No	No	No	Yes

Details

Human Rights Issues	Assassination Terrorism/War on Terror
War / Genocide Referenced	War: Global War on Terrorism
Languages	English
Genre	Long (narrative) Poem
Medium	Print Collection
Notes	The narrative poem treats of a few days spent riding and hunting foxes with a trained eagle in Western Mongolia. The poem brings up the secrecy surrounding the burial place of Genghis Khan, the first khan of the Mongol empire, who is thought to have been buried in the Khentii Mountains in north eastern Mongolia. In that context, the poem mentions the secret sea burial of Osama bin Laden, who was killed in a military operation carried out by two Black Hawk helicopters. There is an implied parallel between hunting foxes with the help of a trained eagle and hunting terrorists with the help of trained US Navy SEAL's (who wear the SEAL trident, which features an eagle).The poem further notes that Bin Laden's burial at sea was a US attempt to prevent his grave from becoming a shrine that would 'allow Bin Laden to become an icon'. This is also an implicit reference to the so-called 'War on Terror'.