Reviewing Ecopoetry.

More on Ecopoetry and a call for a dialogue.

When Earth Shattering, a collection of Ecopoems edited by Neil Astley and often cited as a key reference in articles on ecopoetry, arrived in my mail box in late November, I had expectations. At last I would now find out which poems belonged to the canon of ecopoetry; and although I’m wary of labels, I might even understand the difference between a ‘nature’ poem an ‘eco’ poem and any other kind of poem.

Due to seasonal interruptions, and also the depth and scope of the anthology, it has taken me a long time to get around to collecting my thoughts on it

Here is the review I sent to Kris Hemensley at Collected Works Bookshop. I am posting this on Edge Collective website, because reading Earth Shattering has led me to think yet again about poetry and politics. By way of reply to this response, Kris referred me to his blogspot, collectedworks-poetryideas: THREE FUNERALS AND A BIRTHDAY An Open Letter to Corinne Cantrill, in the aftermath of her 80th Birthday Celebration, at La Mama Theatre, Carlton, November 9th, 2008.

My response to his letter follows as a kind of Post Script to the review, and I’m hoping some of the readers collecting on the edge will join in with some words on their views on the link between art and politics or action and their strategies for facing the current apocalypse.

First the review:
Editor Neil Astley writes in the introduction that he chose the poems ‘primarily from his own reading and spurred on by books and essays by well established ecopoetry critics including J.Scott Bryson, John Elder, Jonathan Bate’. Then he states his major purposes as being to
a - compile an overview of ecopoetry and b - complement other anthologies[1] and critical studies of environmental literature.

He also sets out to redress the negative image of nature poetry and remove the impression that it is irrelevant and old fashioned.

The net he casts is wide and deep. The first two of nine sections of the book cover the forerunners of eco poetry, beginning with the wilderness poetry of ancient China and what he calls ‘egocentric’ nature poetry. The other seven sections are thematic and include poems on ecological topics ranging from natural disasters to ‘the great web’ that ‘moves through and connects all people and things, both human and inhuman’ (2). In Astley’s own words, he wants to create ‘an ecopicture of the whole earth’ (3).

The result is a satisfying varied collection of poems supported by a sturdy framework that shows the progression from what he refers to as the egocentric nature poetry of earlier centuries to the ecologically aware poetry of today. Notes interspersed with the poems give an ecological and literary perspective on each poet. This material is also comprehensively cross-referenced so it is easy to follow any number of paths through the poems.

Poems from English speaking cultures and indigenous writers writing in English dominate the selection but a smattering of poems from elsewhere – always in translation – bring a global perspective to the collection. Also, Astley makes a plea that English and American ecopoetic writings widen their scope to include each other is timely and constructive. Further, he explains that the poemshave been chosen because they alert and alarm us, not just because they are written by poets familiar to most readers (4).

Astley’s catch includes prose as well as poetry, so Thoreau who of course should be in this company is included. James Lovelock, Al Gore and Chief Seattle are all represented in the opening section, Earth Views, which is kind of foreword.

The only thing that worries me is that the section on exploitation, contains a subsection labelled Dispossessing America singles out Native American poets. Although some of them appeat elsewhere, there is the unfortunate possibility that fine poets such as Harjo, Hogan and Gunn Allen will be relegated once again to that other, ‘natural’, world inhabited by indigenous and therefore different people. If that happens then the relevance of their poetry and their ecological philosophy may be lessened. Caroline Tisdall’s description of Joseph Beuys performance piece, in which Beuys was wrapped from head to foot in felt, loaded into an ambulance and then driven to a place where he was to spend a week with a coyote, which takes the concept of ecopoetry right into a post modern context would still have served as an impressive piece with which to end this section.

The world these poems inhabit is as destructive as it is beautiful. They alert or alarm readers of many disasters and losses, but they are never didactic. Their strength ineach instance is in their detail and the language they use to speak in detail of that world, not the message they deliver, does the effective ecological work.
As Joy Harjo writes in Perhaps the World Ends Here [5]
‘Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.’

Post Script:
Worth mentioning too is alarming touch of irony the image on the cover carries. It is a still from The Day after Tomorrow, a film made in 2004 - of people running across a crowded New York street before a huge wave. It is a reminder that until recently such scenes that have been portrayed as science ‘fiction’ have become current reality. In fact the plot concerns a climatologist who tries to figure out a way to save the world from abrupt global warming. The film is described as an action movie and a thriller. Earth Shattering Ecopoems is edited by Neil Astley and was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2007

1 – Astley lists Peter Abbs Earth Songs, John Burnside and Maurice Riordan’s Wild Reckoning, Alice Oswald’s The Thunder Mutters.
2 – Bryson, quoted in earth shattering page 20
3 – Astley, Earth Shattering page 15
4 - Because I didn’t know anything about Neil Astley, I decided to google him. Within minutes I had before me on the screen the transcript of Bile, Guile and Dangerous to Poetry the 2005 StAnza Lecture in which 
NEIL ASTLEY,
 ‘The UK's leading anthologist’ founder of Bloodaxe Books in 1978, speaks his mind on poetry today.’ In this talk he makes it clear that his aim is to cater for readers of poetry rather than follow what he describes as academic elitist fashion.
5 – Earth Shattering, page 243.

And here’s the letter I sent to Kris:
Dear Kris,

In a first draft of my response to Earth Shattering, I wrote that I had come to ecopoetry via my close connection to all aspects of country rather than with a desire for expressing a burning ecological message – although I acknowledge that there is a pressing need for ecological information and messages to be broadcast and acted upon. .

Still the question remains for me: should I be out there saving the native grasses from another dose of Roundup so that the farmers can plant more ‘pasture’ on which they fatten their cattle? My giving up beef doesn’t really seem to be enough. Maybe with the help of landcare fencing off areas of old growth trees is only a gesture as well, but it’s something.. and
isn’t it indulgent to sit in a sheltered valley where eagles floating overhead and blue wrens hop around my feet while the world around me melts, swelters and then dries out?

When I drove through a dust storm last Thursday, keeping a careful watch for falling trees, I know that dust storms strip away that fertile soil, our scarce resource and deposit it as far away as other continents. I tried to find words to describe and contain the experience of being the only moving thing in a landscape shrunken by a dirty sky . . .

I feel more alive when I’m in direct and close contact with the elements, but often I am overwhelmed by the power of nature and my own powerlessness, so I welcomed your example of ‘cheerful fatalism’ and ‘amused wonderment at the miraculous place of human life within the deepest workings of geological time’ carries an important message for all creatives [I’m thinking of using creatives as my term for all artists from now on]

I am yet to come across any of John Barnie’s work and couldn’t find your response to Robyn Rowland’s piece in Zest. I’ll keep looking. I found it most therapeutic to fall back directly on my own experience in my response to your provocative and wise letter.

Best wishes and many thanks,

Sari