Eco-Poetics
This course will explore one of the most important poetic movements of our time, Eco-Poetics, which examines the relationship between poetry, nature, ecology, and environmental justice. We will map, historicize, and contextualize the histories and theories of eco-poetics. We will explore eco-poetics from various cultural perspectives, as well as within the intersecting frameworks of class, gender, and sexuality. We will also study the vibrant range of creative techniques that eco-poets utilize, including the pastoral, modernist, postmodernist, documentary, postcolonial, situational, and spoken word, to name a few.
As creative writers, we will write, workshop, and revise for publication our own eco-poetry that addresses global and local issues, such as industrial and GMO agriculture; oceans, waters, and marine life; land and urbanization; pollution, plastic, garbage, and toxicity; animals and nonhuman life; climate change and adaptation; extinction and precarity; sustainability and climate activism; labor and migration; tourism and militarism. This course will emphasize hands-on activities, and students will be required to participate in individual and group eco-poetic excursions, exercises, and performances (which may involve on-site, virtual, musical, and video components).
Required Texts
Ann Fisher-Wirth & Laura-Gray Street, editors, The Ecopoetry Anthology
Other readings available via Laulima.