Thanks to all who replied to me with lists of names. Some, such as Haslam
and Harwood, came up again and again and made me feel a bit foolish.
The individual character of these poets' engagements with the non-human
world remains a matter that only hard reading will illuminate. My
predominant sense remains that urban experience is the dynamic that has
produced the forms of new poetries. As a rejection of dominant modes
of "conservative pastoral" in the UK this emphasis seems right (not to say
inevitable). If one happens to have, nevertheless, some form of contact
with rural or wild zones, it is a problematic but exciting prospect to
consider how these new ways of writing might alter our way of understanding
nature, that is, produce a new comprehension by engaging with it
differently. For example, our sense of language as a shaping and
anthropomorphic controller of our experience calls into question what
writing about may-flies or an ash tree could possibly mean; is it in fact
possible to respect the differentness of non-human life and yet use human
language to engage with it? If insects don't conceive objects and trees
don't have muscles, a syntax of predicates and verbs requires no small
degree of adaptation. Perhaps language has capacities we've yet to realize?
Or does it intrinsically place animals in the accusative, plants in the
ablative and land in the locative?
As Jane and Rupert have argued the matter has political significance. When -
for obvious examples - we are in the middle of the tribulations of working
out new relationships between Islam and Christendom, or when we continue to
live in the knowledge of global poverty and global profiteering, I don't
think it's right to single out environmentalism as the cornerstone to a
political agenda. But yes it is hugely important. Earth first!
Michael
http://michaelpeverett.blogspot.com
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