Poetic Responses to Eco-catastrophe
In my local aquarium, there is a model of the earth illuminated by a projector. At seven, it was my first glance into eco-catastrophe. When you turn a dial to the left, the projector shows our continents travelling back in time to make one green land mass: 200 Million Years Ago. When you turn it to the right, this land scatters as the dates rise: 2006, until a sea of blue light begins to seep into recognisable countries: 2080. I had just learned how to identify my grandparent’s house on the map in the Netherlands, but a few turns of the dial into the future, it had disappeared under water.
This sense of environmental precarity has only strengthened. Our news feeds are perpetually lit by images of wildfires and waterlogged streets. Every season continues to break record dry or rainy spells. Videos of people’s entire livelihoods being swept away have almost become routine. With the saturation of tragedy on our screens, it is easy to become desensitised and helpless. Poetry may initially seem to be an unlikely response to this, but it counters the predominant images of waste and destruction associated with ecological crises by being generative. There is a pervasive cognitive dissonance in the images we are seeing of climate catastrophe and the inaction of many world leaders. Poetry that bears witness and encourages guardianship of the earth is a refusal to become desensitised or complacent in the face of climate anxiety, breaking silence and inaction. It can become a language of possibility due to its malleable form and space for imagination: an invaluable tool to rebuild the rubble of climate anxiety, transforming an inert state of grief into one of productivity.
Written by
Laura van Diesen
Editor at Boundby
“Poetry […] can become a language of possibility due to its malleable form and space for imagination: an invaluable tool to rebuild the rubble of climate anxiety, transforming an inert state of grief into one of productivity.”
We have become increasingly detached and exploitative of nature in industrialized society. Optimization and technological progress have been prioritized at the sacrifice of the earth’s finite natural resources. However, to write poetry, we often need to escape from the fast pace of modernity and adjust to the rhythms of nature to capture it. Mary Oliver writes that it is the ‘detailed, sensory language incorporating images that gives the poems dash and tenderness…what makes a poem an experience, something much more than mere statement’ (Oliver 93-4). It is this very act of slowing down and observing that can make poetry subversive. It is a small rebellion against ignorance of the environmental casualties of industrial capitalism. As we pause to both read and write poetry, we create a pocket of time for reflection. This is a space where we can forge communion rather than disconnection from nature. In our Spotlight Category, poets have submitted a rich tapestry of images and sensory language in response to our “Eco-Catastrophe” prompt, each one an “experience” that foregrounds the environment.
Oliver, M. (1994) A poetry handbook. San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Co.