Poets who want to respond to the climate crisis need to find ways to acknowledge its variously manifest and yet overwhelming realities. Climate change is not just another new topic; it demands new ways of thinking about and writing poetry. A climate-changed poetry and poetics is less a matter of choice than of adaptation. In “Why Ecopoetry?”, I argued that what defines an ecopoem (a term I prefer to “ecopoetics,” which I reserve for theoretical and programmatic reflections) is not its form or style but its relation to its environment. Part of my goal at the time was to establish what counts as an ecopoem and what doesn’t. Since I published that essay, in 2016, climate change has made me doubt whether this “either/or” distinction is helpful. Instead, I’ve been…
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The American Poetry Review (Digital) - 1 Issue, July/August 2023