Comments on: What Is Eco-Poetry

By: theodore gravestian

theodore gravestian — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 12:37:57 +0000

Why isn’t that essay in verse?
I think the author of that essay is really arguing for ‘the sane’ in light of the Modernists’ insanity. But he strays from his thesis, partly because his theme is hopelessly divided from the very beginning.
The question is always, ” What is good?”
Not, what is prose, what is poetry, what is verse, what is modern, what is eco-poetry?
One never begins with ‘a problem.’
One always begins with “the good.”

By: Gary B. Fitzgerald

Gary B. Fitzgerald — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:58:02 +0000

http://www.cosmoetica.com/S4-EC1.htm

By: Theodore Gravestian

Theodore Gravestian — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 17:56:50 +0000

I love sharks and mice from the bottom of my heart.
But didactic poetry is my abhorrence!

By: Gary B. Fitzgerald

Gary B. Fitzgerald — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:35:17 +0000

Two in response to my friend Mr. Gravestian:
Rabbits and Mice
Serrated, sharp with purpose,
razor hook and pointed saw,
deadly bite and slashing paw,
dangerous, meaning business,
designed for humorless need.
Yet beautiful, these predators,
how they touch our hearts.
How we admire their majesty,
their patterns and their power,
forgetting how they, too, with
savage jaw must feed,
forgetting who must bleed,
who, lying in the mud
will die today.
So magnificent and regal they,
such grace and speed,
such colorful spots and stripes.
We overlook the function
of hissing fang and strike,
the result of tooth and claw,
overlook the severing of parts,
the pain and slice and blood
of helpless prey.
You can not love life without
acknowledging its wages, or beauty
without knowing its price.
.
Pinnacle
Such disdain have we for Nature
for it destroys with such abandon;
the striking snake and dead-eyed shark,
marauding wolf and mountain lion,
those who kill without decision.
So good that we, the pinnacle,
the apex chosen, divinely made and special,
are so much better than are they
since we can murder without purpose
and they but for some good reason.
.
Copyright 2008 – HARDWOOD-77 Poems, Gary B. Fitzgerald

By: Theodore Gravestian

Theodore Gravestian — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 19:24:44 +0000

Let’s say we had a second earth to populate: how would we go about doing it? How many deer? How many lambs? How many lions? How many mosquitoes? How many trees? How many mountains? How many people? How many fish in the oceans? How many eaters and how many eaten?
And even if we were able to say exactly how many of each kind of life should exist (even down to single cell organisms, viruses, etc) how would we then determine the spread of each?
Let’s say, for this ‘second earth,’ we realize the logistical problem of counting and controlling all life would be too complex, and focus, therefore, on somehow controlling one aspect of life: humankind, ourselves. How would we do that? Would we pick some number and say, “No more humans after that?” And what, exactly, would that number be based on? Let there be X number of people, so there can be X number of deer? Let there be X number of people, living here and here and here, and based on this, allow X number of this or that creature which this or that person adores? And what sort of food-chain, ecological impact would our ‘second earth’ caretaking have, no matter how well-intentioned? Could we even dream such a thing, much less make it a reality? Who could we possibly put in charge of such a thing, and how could such a thing possibly be enacted, fairly, or at all?
But here we are, living in division and ignorance and folly upon the ‘first earth,’ essentially dreaming of the same thing.
Such ecological vanity is utter madness, the ultimate daydream of goody-good delusion, as pernicious a folly as any which has afflicted humankind.

By: Steve Tills

Steve Tills — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 11:56:26 +0000

“it may be worthwhile to ask whether an ethnocentric view of human beings as a species independent from others underpins our exploitation of natural resources and sets into motion dire consequences.”
First thing that comes to my mind is almost always William Barrett’s _The Illusion of Technique_, which argued very persuasively that human’s zeal to “master” nature, an obviously grandiose, extra-arrogant perception presuming independence and the alienation of interdependence, could one day prove fatal to ALL species’ continued “evolution” on this little pebble in the seriously larger greater universe. Well, at least that is one of the main things I got from the book — haven’t reread it in 30 years, not that one has to reread such brilliant common sense twice when it’s pretty simple “to get” the first time. Yeah, so here we are, 2008, wondering if little old mom nature we’ve so thoroughly mastered will even permit us, ALL of us organic organisms, to even so much as “exist” 50-150 years from now; at the rate we are going, mom nature is likely to throw us some snowballs and tidal waves and tornadoes and subsequent virus soups (what did Jacque Cousteau predict if we kept putting a lid of pollution on the oceans…) that will easily wipe everything out. I emphasize the term “mom” nature, of course, because our arrogance is obviously quite patriarchal, also. (Well, I get some of that notion from Riane Eisler, whose _The Chalice and the Blade_ kind of follows the same logic of Barrett’s railings against the limits of Logic and Technology, to more contemporary conclusions, but it’s really the same story — either we “come together” and cooperate or we continue to live by a “dominator mode” that will at best keep us fighting, warring, and pillaging).
Now then, if ya think about it, if we call for “technique, “form,” “line break,” “syntax,” or “the shape of the poem” to take on the/a cause of ecopoetics, might we be risking making the same mistake I believe Barrett alerts us to, namely, the mistake of letting “technology” control things?
This is perhaps really, really simple-minded on my part, and thus genuinely stupid (so don’t let me be disingenuous here), but isn’t it really “content” and WHERE we focus our poetic energies, NOT the technique of Poetry, that might directly and sincerely affect our eco-survival? I say this because I am, not unlike many others the last 10-15 years, quite cynically suspect about the eternal clamor for new form, particularly when I believe that that clamor is born solely of ambition to “compete” for literary history and fame. Such competition, if not most Competition in general, usually goes against the whole grain of “cooperation” and thus that direction for Poetry always repulses me as arrogant, excessively ambitious (ambition born of underexplored character defects and underdevelopment of personality), and empty hearted. I.e., if all one is trying to do is “come up with the next great form or style or look,” and one really “doesn’t have anything to say,” then one doesn’t necessarily deserved to be trusted. (Again, though, my argument here may be profoundly naive, so I want to caution against taking it too seriously, and after all, just being here commenting, and pushing this line of thought, I’m as “competitive” and “ambitious” as “the next GUY,” so I certainly want to be equally suspect of my own “dark side.”

By: Patrick Jones

Patrick Jones — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 22:45:48 +0000

Permapoesis
Permaculture bases its design principles on agro-ecology. A permaculturalist understands local ecology and applies this understanding to food production. This changes social, economic and cultural structures. If a poet’s food, which in part provides the material for poesis, is produced with her involvement, and within walking distance of her primary dwelling, her text is altered from one of capitalisation (reliance upon importation of resources) to one of ecology. The poet now participates actively within the environment that supports her, and the form and content of her life and work change accordingly.

By: Gary B. Fitzgerald

Gary B. Fitzgerald — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 02:10:19 +0000

Just having a little poetic fun. Sorry.
Hey…you brought up the subject!

By: Gary B. Fitzgerald

Gary B. Fitzgerald — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 02:04:05 +0000

People
People, people, people, people, people,
birds, people, people, people, people,
people, deer, people, people, people,
people, people, trees, people, people,
people, people, people, land, people,
people, people, people, people, people
people Earth,
So many people. So many dead.
Copyright 2008, SOFTWOOD-Seventy-eight Poems, Gary B. Fitzgerald

By: Gary B. Fitzgerald

Gary B. Fitzgerald — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 01:58:46 +0000

Corner Lot
(country living)
Those trees growing wild
on that wooded corner lot, thick
with birds and beasts,
always made my day.
Every morning I admired them
as I made my way to work.
I made my left turn slowly to avoid
those who lived among them,
making their way home
in the pre-dawn light.
But one sad day I turned the corner
to sorrow and regret.
No longer wooded. A plowed up field
of mud and broken sticks.
All who lived there gone away.
Unsated hunger and desire,
encroaching need, eating land
like locusts eat the grain,
the population spreads.
Each one wants what we have had:
the privacy and solitude and peace,
and so as surely guarantee
that what they seek will by
their finding it be gone, lost
through the very effort to obtain
Spreading upon us like a pox,
the population smothers.
I pass a corner lot now filled
with an emptiness of life,
replaced by an asphalt driveway,
a cultivated lawn and a mailbox
just like all the others..
copyright 2008 – SOFTWOOD-Seventy-eight Poems, Gary B. Fitzgerald