Cueva de las Manos — Santa Cruz, Argentina, ca. 7300 BC
If a poem fails in a forest because no one who hears it, is it still a poem? If a poem denies time, is it any less timely? Might we speak of a timely poem but also an untimely one? The more a poem is in time the more it becomes part of the folds and veils of deep time.
Post-ecopoetics is a guide for thinking the longevity and durability of the poem in deep time. I have asked a number of poets and scholars to serve as additional guides by asking them to respond to the following questions: “What will poetry be in ten thousand years? If you wrote a poem that you knew would last ten thousand years, how would this impact your writing?”
Each of their responses will be posted as an individual commentary linked to this series.
Cueva de las Manos — Santa Cruz, Argentina, ca. 7300 BC
Like any writing, a poem has an imagined audience. But the poem that would last ten thousand years — who or what would encounter it? And what would they do with it, how process it? Would they have access to the languages we speak and the symbols with which we write?
Post-ecopoetics is a guide for thinking the longevity and durability of the poem in deep time. I have asked a number of poets and scholars to serve as additional guides by asking them to respond to the following questions: “What will poetry be in ten thousand years? If you wrote a poem that you knew would last ten thousand years, how would this impact your writing?”
Each of their responses will be posted as an individual commentary linked to this series.
Cueva de las Manos — Santa Cruz, Argentina, ca. 7300 BC
In ten thousand years, poetry will be less a noun and more a verb. Its primary focus will be (simulated) immersion. Poetry will be pan-sensory. Maybe ESP. Perhaps not extrasensory perception, but extrasensory poetry. Poetry will be done to get in touch for sincerity’s sake because the self will be spread so thin.
Post-ecopoetics is a guide for thinking the longevity and durability of the poem in deep time. I have asked a number of poets and scholars to serve as additional guides by asking them to respond to the following questions: “What will poetry be in ten thousand years? If you wrote a poem that you knew would last ten thousand years, how would this impact your writing?”
Each of their responses will be posted as an individual commentary linked to this series.
Cueva de las Manos — Santa Cruz, Argentina, ca. 7300 BC
If I wrote a poem that I knew would last ten thousand years the ecstasy of communication might overtake the particulars of writing and poetry: it would mean writing from the place of resonance where masses suddenly agreed to dematerialize to make way for a web of life that makes legibility not only meaningful but possible. What is a poem and what is writing and what does it mean to last.
Post-ecopoetics is a guide for thinking the longevity and durability of the poem in deep time. I have asked a number of poets and scholars to serve as additional guides by asking them to respond to the following questions: “What will poetry be in ten thousand years? If you wrote a poem that you knew would last ten thousand years, how would this impact your writing?”
Each of their responses will be posted as an individual commentary linked to this series.
Cueva de las Manos — Santa Cruz, Argentina, ca. 7300 BC
The unpredictable expansiveness of poetry precludes any certainty when it comes to particular forms and contents. However, I suppose one can be certain that if there are humans then there will be poetry and it will continue to inhabit the edges of what is sayable and knowable, regardless of whatever repressive political or cultural forces may exist.
Post-ecopoetics is a guide for thinking the longevity and durability of the poem in deep time. I have asked a number of poets and scholars to serve as additional guides by asking them to respond to the following questions: “What will poetry be in ten thousand years? If you wrote a poem that you knew would last ten thousand years, how would this impact your writing?”
Each of their responses will be posted as an individual commentary linked to this series.
Post-Ecopoetics