Review: Recomposing Ecopoetics: North American Poetry of the Self-Conscious Anthropocene

Abstract

"This book grapples with key cultural and environmental conundrums that confront us now: the scale of planetary change, toxicity, plastics, apocalypticism, human relations to nonhuman animals, place in a globalized world, and environmental justice issues. Analyzing work by contemporary North American poets --from Evelyn Reilly and Juliana Spahr to Ed Roberson and Jena Osman--this study examines poetry of the "self-conscious Anthropocene," a period in which there is growing awareness of the scale and severity of human effects on the planet. This study brings cutting-edge work in ecocriticism to bear on a diverse archive of contemporary environmental poetry and offers the environmental humanities new ways to understand the cultural and affective dimensions of the Anthropocene"-- Introduction: beyond nature poetry -- "In deep time into deepsong": writing the scalar challenges of the anthropocene -- Toxicity, nets, and polymeric chains: the ecopoetics of plastic -- "Under these apo-calypso rays": crisis, pleasure, and eco-apocalyptic poetry -- Understanding nonhumans: interspecies communication in poetry -- Global rearrangements: sense of place in twenty-first-century ecopoetics -- Environmental justice poetry of the self-conscious anthropocene -- Coda: writing the self-conscious anthropocene.