Have a look at the scale of harm we humans have created, socially and environmentally. There is indeed a monstrous beast in each one of us. There is evil amongst us. We cannot mend our dangerous behaviour without “the education of the heart” by poems and fiction-prose.
There are innumerable poetry and prose expressions that have entertained daily panicked thoughts, for example, about the climate apocalypse and the decimation of the planet.
Have you read the poems in the “Burning Worlds” monthly column of Amy Brady, the American literary critic dedicated to examining trends in climate fiction, or “cli-fi”, in partnership with Yale Climate Connections?
Have you read the mother of all climate disaster fiction, The Grapes of Wrath, published way back in 1939?
If not, don’t fritter away your time in trivial pasttimes. Read them. They are worth your time.
It is well said that such expressions serve as “empathy machines”. They increase empathy in readers and, therefore, can be effective tool in conveying urgent messages and changing behaviours. They make abstract or diffuse issues more real to the readers. They act as visions of the future in order to highlight changes we can make in the present. They attempt to reconcile despair and hope and the way we as humans have both loved and let down the world. They make us to embrace activism, to resist the capitalist system, the source of climate breakdown.
John Steinbeck was “a novelist who is also a true poet”. Set against the background of Dust Bowl Oklahoma and Californian migrant life, his masterpiece tells of the Joad family, who, like thousands of others, are forced to travel west in search of the promised land. Their story is one of false hopes, thwarted desires and broken dreams. And yet, “wherever human beings dream of a dignified and free society in which they can harvest the fruits of their own labour, The Grapes of Wrath’s radical voice of protest can still be heard. As a tale of dashed illusions, thwarted desires, inhuman suffering, and betrayed promises—all strung on a shimmering thread of hope—The Grapes of Wrath not only summed up the Depression era’s socially conscious art but, beyond that—for emotional urgency, evocative power, and sustained drama—has few peers in American fiction.”
Feel that fearsome “dust bowl” of the past, which is expected to return now not only in the US but also in many other parts of the world, as follows:
The plains soil had turned dry
No rains made the crops die
Red dust was everywhere
That just made the land bare
The harm they did not see
Dry farm way was the key
How to farm they knew not
Winds blew away the lot.
(by Tom Cunningham, in poetrysoup.com)
On the 14th day of April of 1935 There struck the worst of dust storms that ever filled the sky You could see that dust storm comin' The cloud looked deathlike black And through our mighty nation it left a dreadful track From Oklahoma City to the Arizona line Dakota and Nebraska to the lazy Rio Grande It fell across our city like a curtain of black rolled down We thought it was our judgement, we thought it was our doom
The radio reported, we listened with alarm The wild and windy actions of this great, mysterious storm From Albuquerque and Clovis and all New Mexico They said it was the blackest that ever they had saw
From old Dodge City, Kansas, the dust had rung their knell And a few more comrades sleeping on top of old Boot Hill From Denver, Colorado, they said it blew so strong They thought that they could hold out But they didn't know how long
Our relatives were huddled into their oil boom shacks And the children, they was cryin' as it whistled through the cracks And the family it was crowded into their little room They thought the world had ended And they thought it was their doom
Storm took place at sundown, it lasted through the night When we looked out next morning, we saw a terrible sight We saw outside our window, where wheat fields, they had grown Was now a rippling ocean of dust the wind had blown
It covered up our fences, it covered up our barns It covered up our tractors in this wild and dusty storm We loaded our jalopies and piled our families in We rattled down that highway to never come back again
(The Great Dust Storm by Woody Guthrie)
Now, come to the poems of the present.
Read this poem:
We’re sat by the ocean and this
could be a love poem; but that lullaby murderer
refuses each name I give it
and the icebergs seep into our sandwiches,
translated by carbon magic. And even this might be
to say too much. But the muse of poetry
has told me to be more clear – and don’t,
s/he said, for the love of God, please, screw things up.
Ambiguous, I didn’t reply; as we’re sat
by the ocean and I could make it
anything you wanted, for this moment
of speaking – but we have made it
something forever. Together
the weather
is a language we can barely understand;
but confessional experts detect
in the senseless diktat of hurricane
a hymning of our sins, our stupid counterpoint.
Love has served its purpose, now must be
transformed by an impersonal sequester
of me into the loves I will not see,
or touch, or in any way remember.
Perhaps it was always like this – take my hand,
horizon – ceding this land.
Also, read this poem:
Some things on this earth are unspeakable:
Genealogy of the broken—
A shy wind threading leaves after a massacre,
Or the smell of coffee and no one there—
Some humans say trees are not sentient beings,
But they do not understand poetry—
Nor can they hear the singing of trees when they are fed by
Wind, or water music—
Or hear their cries of anguish when they are broken and bereft—
Now I am a woman longing to be a tree, planted in a moist, dark earth
Between sunrise and sunset—
I cannot walk through all realms—
I carry a yearning I cannot bear alone in the dark—
What shall I do with all this heartache?
The deepest-rooted dream of a tree is to walk
Even just a little ways, from the place next to the doorway—
To the edge of the river of life, and drink—
I have heard trees talking, long after the sun has gone down:
Imagine what would it be like to dance close together
In this land of water and knowledge. . .
To drink deep what is undrinkable.
Who wrote these poems?
Find out.
Explore more.
REFERENCES
https://chireviewofbooks.com/2017/08/30/best-poems-about-climate-change/
John Steinbeck. 1939. The Grapes of Wrath. Penguin.
By Annavajhula J.C. Bose, PhD
Department of Economics, SRCC
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