Ingratitude in Gratitude to Deborah Bird Rose

Abstract

This is a story of how Debbie Rose grounded my research in unlikely ways and how I repaid her by writing something critically provocative about the field she helped found: the environmental humanities. I don’t feel bad about this, which is odd given my learned tendency towards feelings of guilt. But as a strange kind of free verse elegy I want to explore the ambivalent state I find myself in here: on one hand grieving a lost mentor and friend, and on the other feeling committed to my critical position.