Four poems: ‘Waves’, ‘after Thinking Like a Mountain’, ‘Fire’, ‘Water’

In the Anthropocene era, human activity on the planet – including deforestation, agriculture, extraction, industrial production and consumption – has dominated earth’s biosphere so drastically as to create global, ecological imbalances. The practice of ecopoetics stands in contrast to an anthropocentric approach of place-domination. Instead, ecopoetic place-making explores connection and responsibility to earth. In Australia, this is a difficult task, since many of us are living on stolen land that is also “wounded space … that has been torn and fractured by violence and exile” (Rose p. 2). In the ecopoetic vein, these poems seek to witness: to listen with attentiveness to the destruction of ecological and cultural systems, as well as to the life that endures through trees, rivers, soil, plant life, culture, animals and people – all beings. Responsive to the processes of nature, the poems begin to imitate. Within this framework of relationality, poetry becomes an act of care. As John Seed and Arne Naess posit, conscious identification with other life-forms leads to coexistence and care (Seed et al. p. 13, p. 25). Through voice and connection, writing engenders receptive healing, both personal and in the historical present, and into death. The poetry imagines a diverse reality: one in which the land is returned to its rightful caretakers and all beings retain the chance to flourish.