Ecopoetics: Ethics of Body, Cyborg Writing, and Excess

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Title:	Ecopoetics: Ethics of Body, Cyborg Writing, and Excess
Authors:	黃逸民
Date:	2011-01
Issue Date:	2016-10-12 02:17:08 (UTC+8)
Publisher:	Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Abstract:	John Elder in Imaging the Earth gives a very good definition of ecopoetry when he says that one of the most important characteristics of ecopoetry is to “practice fidelity to the ongoing creation of the world” (132). Such authenticity of experience emphasized by ecopoetry is usually carried out through the sensuous dimension of language, and the close attentiveness to the human body's messages beyond language and abstractions (132). The bodily vision of poetry, as Elder points out, pursues the possibility of embodying the mind's identification with nature. Such a bodily vision is actively celebrated in Linda Hogan's poetry. In “Awake,” Hogan attempts to awaken our consciousness to see, feel and touch the reconciliation between human consciousness and the world. It is the moment when the human body can identify and heal its alienation from the world by means of physical and sensuous participation in nature “beyond all ideas of its goodness or beauty” (132). In her poem, she writes: Waking today just before winter when I try to name the color of grasses, how I feel their beauty, there is no word. (18) Obviously, Hogan insists on the insufficiency of language to grasp the beauty of grasses. A need for the body's redeeming connections with the world instead is emphasized and celebrated. A direct experience and attachment to the world through physical and bodily awareness substitutes for the indirect knowledge of the world through language motivated by abstract conceptions. For Hogan, an enlightening moment of wisdom is achieved through the celebration of bodily awareness: I think of the time before there were words, when you would know morning mist by the feel of your loved one's skin and hair, and when someone came from the forest of dry leaves you would know them by their scent even if they carried no wood. (18)
Relation:	The Future of Ecocriticism: New Horizons , pp.256-267
Appears in Collections:	[Graduate Institute & Department of English] Chapter

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