Introductory description

This module offers an immersive, practical and theoretical orientation to the major "compass points" in ecopoetics: sounding, conceptual and procedural work, research and documentary poetry, situationist practices, boundary work and investigation of systems, hybrid and interstitial poetics of relation, as methodologically distinct orientations for creative and critical writing engaged with the emerging social, ecological and political challenges of the Anthropocene. Students will benefit from the interdisciplinary perspectives of discussions pointing to future configurations of literary arts and studies in relation to the humanities, sciences and social sciences.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Week 1 Introductions. Methods. Overview of workshop. Walking, listening and writing.
Week 2 Sound and soundscapes.
Week 3 Concepts and procedures.
Week 4 Documents and research.
Week 5 Situations.
Week 6 Systems and boundaries.
Week 7 Interstices and hybrids.
Week 8 First review and creative project draft due. Workshopping.
Week 9 Second review and creative project draft due. Workshopping.
Week 10 Third review and creative project draft due. Workshopping.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate an understanding of key critical and literary concepts in ecopoetics
• Conceptualise and articulate an original research project in literary studies
• Develop strategies for reading ecologically oriented poetry in the wider context of creative and critical theory
• Design and initiate ecocritical experiments in creative writing.
• Advance a critique of specific environmental solutions through applied creative practice.

Indicative reading list

Introduction

Pauline Oliveiros, We Could
Charles Olson, from Projective Verse
Lisa Robertson, How Pastoral
Gary Snyder, Unnatural Writing
CAConrad, The Right to Manifest Manifesto
Cecilia Vicuña, Poetry in Space
Ed Roberson, Be Careful

Sound and soundscapes (Week 2 )

John Cage, “Music Loversʼ Field Companion,” Empty Words (excerpt)
Emily Dickinson, "A route of evanescence"
Larry Eigner, What you Hear (selections)
Ronald Johnson, “ARK 38, Arielʼs Songs to Prospe
Nathaniel Mackey, “Sound and Semblance”
Lorine Niedecker, “Paean to Place”
Maggie OʼSullivan, “Starlings”
R. Murray Schafer, The Soundscape (excerpt)

Concepts and procedures (Week 3 )

Jody Gladding, Translations from Bark Beetle
Kenneth Goldsmith, The Weather (selection)
Bernadette Mayer, Midwinter Day (excerpt)
Stephen Ratcliffe, Real (selections)
Ron Silliman, “Jones,” “Skies” (excerpts)
Juliana Spahr, things of each possible relation hashing against one another (excerpt)
Jonathan Stalling, “Wolf Howls”

Documents and research (Week 4 )

Jack Collom, “Passage” (excerpt)
Brenda Coultas, The Bowery Project (selection)
Thalia Field; Bird Lovers, Backyard (excerpt)
Susan Howe, “Thorow”
Phil Metres, Oil (selections)
Simon Ortiz, Fight Back: For the Sake of the People, For the Sake of the Land
(selection)
Ed Sanders, Investigative Poetry (excerpt)
Eleni Sikelianos, The California Poem (selection)

Situations (Week 5 )

Wendell Berry, Farming: A Manual (selection)
Jules Boykoff and Kaia Sand, Landscapes of Dissent (excerpt)
Simon Cutts, “After John Clare: Proposal for the first Aeolian Neon, powered by wind turbine,”
Allison Hedge Coke, Blood Run (selection)
Brenda Hillman, Practical Water (selection)
Joan Maloof, “September 11th Memorial Forest”
Julie Patton, “Paper Toys,” Concrete Poetries, “Composaytions,” “Floor Plays,”
“Recycle Pedias,” and “Vociflors” (photo portfolio)
Heidi Lynn Staples and Amy King, eds., Poets for Living Waters (editorsʼ statement)

Systems and boundaries (Week 6 )

Will Alexander, “The Bedouin Ark”
Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, “Pollen”
Robert Duncan, “The Opening of the Field”
Lyn Hejinian, “The Quest for Knowledge in the Western Poem” (excerpt)
Myung mi Kim, Dura (selection)
Jena Osman, The System (selection)
Gary Snyder, “Mount Saint Helens: Loowit” and “After Bamiyan”
Arthur Sze, “The Redshifting Web” (excerpt)

Interstices and hybrids (Week 7 )

Sherwin Bitsui, Flood Song (excerpt)
Philippe Descola, Par-delà nature et culture / Beyond Nature and Culture (excerpt)
Robert Grenier, OWL/ON/BOU/GH (selection)
James Thomas Stevens, “A Half-Breedʼs Guide to the Use of Native Plants”
(selections)
Cecilia Vicuña, “Ten Metaphors in Space”

Research element

Students will be asked to keep a commonplace book (or online blog), integrating notes on poetry and poetics, along with poem drafts, with notes from research into a specific environmental problem, and ecocritical reviews of contemporary poetry collections. The final assessment entails discipline specific scholarly research (into literary, theoretical, and historical foundations for a creative writing project) as well as cross-disciplinary research into the specific historical, ecological and social dimensions of an environmental case study.

Interdisciplinary

Understanding and tackling environmental problems such as climate change, pollution, habitat loss, gentrification, redlining, and species extinction inherently entail cross- (or "inter-") disciplinary exchange. Formative assignments and summative assessment on the module ask students to initiate and, through their creative practice, engage research into a specific case study, research that will bring them into contact with relevant interdisciplinary research hubs at the University such as CIM (Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies), EHN (Environmental Humanities Network), GSD (Global Sustainable Development), IAS (Institute of Advanced Study), IATL (Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning), YPCCS (Yesu Persaud Centre for Caribbean Studies), or any of the relevant groups working on GRPs (Global Research Priorities).

International

There is no environmental problem, however local, that does not have a global dimension: developing the understanding and skills to confront such problems entails world-ecological critique, comparative study and cosmopolitan outlook. This module encourages students to approach environmental case studies in an international framework (e.g. comparing the canal waterways of the Midlands with the canals of Venice in the context of global warming). It is well suited to students on international exchange programs such as the Monash Alliance or to potential teaching and research exchange between University of Warwick and Ca'Foscari University.

Subject specific skills

To develop an informed perspective on the concept of ecopoetics in its ecological, political and cultural aspects, and to adapt this perspective to further research in a variety of literary subfields.
Develop practice in designing and initiating site-specific creative writing experiments ("prompts") as methods of environmental research.
Develop critique of practice based on the methodological aims of the ecopoetics "compass points."

Transferable skills

Demonstrate the conceptual ability to read literary and other cultural artifacts as social texts.
Develop sustained and critical arguments in relation to the intersections of the social, political and cultural.
Acquire an informed perspective on ecological challenges and climate change.
Build communication skills through cross-disciplinary creative practice.