In the Key of Green? The Silent Voices of Plants in Poetry

Abstract

In his 1826 'Observations on the Growth of the Mind', Sampson Reed wrote: "Everything which is, whether animal or vegetable, is full of the expression of that use for which it is designed, as of its own existence .... Let [us] respect the smallest blade which grows, and permit it to speak for itself. Then may there be poetry, which may not be written perhaps, but which may be felt as a part of our being."1 Since this plaintive appeal by Reed, allowing the "smallest blade" (or, prickliest spine or loveliest heart- shaped leaf) to speak has become a technological preoccupation for some. Let us begin with a typical example. Cactus Acoustics is a project that aims to allow saguaro cacti to vocalize.2 We might imagine the voice of the burly saguaro as gruff and slightly imposing. Growing to considerable proportions- up to five stories high, eight tons in weight, and over a hundred years in age- 'Carnegie gigantea' is endemic to the Sonoran Desert.