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Recomposing Ecopoetics: North American Poetry of the Self-Conscious Anthropocene. By Lynn Keller. (Under the Sign of Nature: Explorations in Ecocriticism) Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. 2918. xv+284 pp. £49 (pbk £22). ISBN 978-0-813-94061-8 (pbk 978-0-813-94062-5).
In the introduction to her study of North American ecopoetry appearing in the last fifteen years, Lynn Keller defines the self-conscious Anthropocene as ‘a powerful cultural phenomenon tied to reflexive, critical, and often anxious awareness of the scale and severity of human effects on the planet’ (p. 2). This concept signifies a ‘period of changed recognition [original emphasis]’ marked by intense awareness of the human capacity to transform the biosphere (p. 2). As scientists continue to debate the value of formalizing the epoch as a geotemporal unit, Keller reminds us, poets at the same time have been responding to the scale and severity of ecological crises. The impact of Anthropocene immediacies on the theory and practice of poetry, nonetheless, has been curiously underappreciated in environmental criticism. |
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