Ecopoetics in the Era of Climate Crisis: Writing Ecological Destruction (and Recovery) // Jesse Holth

April is both National Poetry Month and Earth Month: what better way to mark the occasion than a discussion of ecopoetics in the climate era? Jesse Holth steps in as guest editor for a month exploring this theme.

What is ecopoetry?

Really, almost anything can be considered ecopoetry. So many poems written today bleed images of impending climate catastrophe—whether literally or metaphorically, intentionally or inadvertently. It is a byproduct of the times we are navigating, the backdrop against which all our lives are being lived.

It is part of our collective consciousness: it haunts our dreams, our nightmares. There’s a reason this specter lends itself so well to horror, sci-fi, apocalypse narratives, and speculative poetry. It is monstrous. Overwhelming. Constantly looming.

Scientists say we have a failure to act on climate breakdown because we simply cannot imagine the scale of the problem—our brains cannot fathom it. Registering ecological destruction of this magnitude is like envisioning the vastness of the universe: nearly impossible. It hurts to think about. We are growing a new vocabulary to describe our psychological reactions: Ecological grief. Climate anxiety. Climate defeatism. Solastalgia, a kind of existential dread.

Gaining new words can be helpful—there is power in naming what we feel—but it also comes with a temptation to think we are the first people to experience these feelings. Naming something, or rather re-naming it, does not mean that it wasn’t already there. If this sounds eerily familiar, it should: such “doctrine of discovery” rhetoric has wreaked havoc all over the world, including territories in so-called Canada that have been consistently and systematically re-named to erase Indigenous connections which predate this country by millennia.

Canada’s “nature myth” is predicated on the existence of uninhabited land, terra nullius, a lie used to dispossess Indigenous people from their territory and enforce colonial rule. All poets, including—or especially—nature poets, must contend with complicity. Gwen Benaway has argued, “No nature poem in Canada is benevolent. No poet is just an observer. Every poem and poet is a willing participant in someone’s disappearance.” What does it mean to write poetry in a place where historical and ongoing colonialism continues to displace Indigenous people?

In her essay for this series, Tiffany Morris advocates the path of Etuaptmumk, or Two-Eyed Seeing. She says dualistic modes like this can help us to decolonize the future. We must also avoid what has been called “settler moves to innocence,” akin to the kind of virtue signalling that Farah Ghafoor decries in her piece. We cannot ignore or reject our own complicity: it is a constant reckoning and recognition. Claire Caldwell tackles this in her essay for the series, and reminds us that the very concept of “wilderness” is a colonial construct. It locates the natural world as something outside of ourselves, something separate, something “other” that can simply be visited at one’s leisure.

The harmful illusion that we are somehow separate from nature has lasted far too long. It stems from a colonial-capitalist way of thinking that is completely out of step with reality, and has directly contributed to—or in fact, caused—the current climate crisis. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson explains, “Indigenous people have witnessed continual ecosystem and species collapse since the early days of colonial occupation.” This is not a new problem—it is simply getting worse.

In a way, the current COVID-19 crisis has not only highlighted some of our worst issues, but also demonstrated the very scenarios I fear will be repeated with climate breakdown, like two sides of the same coin: severe inequality, wealth hoarded by the few, resource extraction at all costs, and communities that are deemed “expendable.” It is unfolding all around us in real-time. Who will be protected and insulated from the worst effects of climate change? And who is on the frontlines? There is a stark division between who will be allowed to survive, and who will be sacrificed. We cannot let this be the future—we cannot let this narrative play out over and over.

Kim Trainor, in her piece for this series, writes, “Words are lenses.” They reflect the world around us, and magnify what already exists—including where this world is broken. Words can illuminate our problems, put them under a microscope, make us think about—and relate to—these problems in a new way. We know what is happening, but perhaps we cannot yet feel it. Kim recounts a colleague suggesting that scientists have failed to communicate on the climate crisis, and it’s up to the poets and artists now.

Ecopoetry is inherently and necessarily political—indeed, maybe all poetry is. Di Brandt has said that “poetry must be, at its core, concerned with the political power of language.” Does this make all poets activists? Many of us do not have the privilege of being complacent: it’s our lives on the line, and simply existing in this system is a political act. Complacency is a luxury distinctly—and purposefully—not afforded to all. In this way, change is a matter of survival.

The system and structures that have perpetuated injustice, upheld inequality, and exacerbated the climate crisis are likely to double down before they break. We must concern ourselves with preventing this. If failure of imagination is part of the problem, this is where the work of poets must be done. But, as the writers in this series will discuss, it must always be coupled with concrete action. We must organize. We must get out into the streets. Writing, in and of itself, will not be enough.

Jesse Holth is a writer, editor, and poet living in Lekwungen territory. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Room, Grain, CV2, Canthius, and other publications. She recently served as Guest Editor for the Abrupt Environments issue of antilang., and Guest Poetry Editor for the final issue of The Tishman Review. She is currently working on two full-length collections.