Ecopoetics: Essays in the Field makes a formidable intervention into the emerging field of ecopoetics. The volume鈥檚 essays model new and provocative methods for reading twentieth and twenty-first century ecological poetry and poetics, drawing on the insights of ecocriticism, contemporary philosophy, gender and sexuality studies, black studies, Native studies, critical race theory, and disability studies, among others.
Contributors offer readings of a diverse range of poets, few of whom have previously been read as nature writers鈥攆rom midcentury Beat poet Michael McClure, Objectivist poet George Oppen, and African American poets Melvin Tolson and Robert Hayden; to contemporary writers such as Din茅 poet Sherwin Bitsui, hybrid/collage poets Claudia Rankine and Evelyn Reilly, and members of the Olimpias disability culture artists鈥 collective. While addressing preconceptions about the categories of nature writing and ecopoetics, contributors explore, challenge, and reimagine concepts that have been central to environmental discourse, from apocalypse and embodiment to toxicity and sustainability.
As a volume, Ecopoetics makes the compelling argument that ecopoetics should be read as 鈥渃oextensive with post-1945 poetry and poetics,鈥 rather than as a subgenre or movement within it. It is essential reading for any student or scholar working on contemporary literature or in the environmental humanities today.
鈥淭his innovative volume showcases a capacious range of critical approaches to the diverse forms, social practices, and political imaginaries of contemporary ecologically oriented poetics. Drawing poetry and environmental theory into compelling new configurations, Ecopoetics: Essays in the Field offers an essential field guide to ecopoetics in a calamitous era.鈥濃擬argaret Ronda, University of California鈥揇avis
鈥淭hese incisive essays offer persuasive arguments for the relevance of diverse poetry to the actualities of ecological damage. They demonstrate how many contemporary poets, whether writing about green stuff, cities, selves, or language, take a critical stand alongside environmental scientists and campaigners, offering vital resources for our altering world.鈥濃擯eter Middleton, University of Southampton
鈥淭his sharply conceived volume is a hive of essays by alert pollinators, buzzing around ecopoetics with fierce determination to rise above casual assumptions about its potential and its applicability. Their deft appraisals are instructive, witty, and bound to provoke serious reconsideration of all that鈥檚 at stake in poetry.鈥濃擩ed Rasula, University of Georgia
Joshua Bennett, Rob Halpern, Matt Hooley, Angela Hume, Lynn Keller, Petra Kuppers, Michelle Niemann, Gillian Osborne, Samia Rahimtoola, Joan Retallack, Joshua Schuster, Jonathan Skinner
