Ecopoetry: A Brief Introduction

This video is a brief introduction to ecopoetry, intended for educational purposes.

What is Ecopoetry?

"Ecopoetry is connection."-James Engelhardt

Ecopoetry is a type of poetry that has an emphasis on ecology and often has an ecological message.

Ecopoetry is not just poetry about nature, but pushes through tradition showing nature as a neutral force, forever non-human.

Ecopoetry states that humans are accountable for the non-human world.

Ecopoetry emphasizes an eco-centered world or a biological perspective over a human centered world.

"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise." --Aldo Leopold
Ecopoetry is skeptical of technology and hyperrationality.

"Ecopoetics knows that science can be more like art in the complexity of its aims and methods, and that science as facts is a human invention."-Jonathan Skinner

Ecopoetry does not fear science, but encourages a move into the emerging new studies of ecology.

"The ecopoem must connect to the human capacity to play."-James Engelhardt

Ecopoetry connects us with the natural world and our animal counterparts.

Ecopoetry uses totems to make connections, such as the bear (benevolent and wise), and the coyote (the trickster who is always open, shapeshifts, and laughs from the dark side). It also encourages people to find their own totems and symbols in the natural world.

"Creativity draws on wildness, and wildness confers freedom, which is (at bottom) the ability to live in the real physical world at each moment, totally and completely."-Gary Snyder

Images from deviantArt by theymakestars, lightsofthenights, NinieLond, Swolf88, Dothy, JasonDesjardins, Scubaozgirl, pcoppolo46, Iamidaho, and RoieG

Category:

Education

Tags:

• ecopoetry
• poetry
• educational
• Gary Snyder
• James Engelhardt
• Ralph Vaughan Williams