Ecopoetics

Ecopoetics is a field at the intersection of poetry, poetics, and environmental thought that examines how language engages ecological relationships. It emphasizes place, interdependence, and the political dimensions of environmental crisis, while challenging anthropocentric views. Practitioners seek to render ecological processes, vulnerability, and resilience in literary form, often experimenting with language, form, and voice to reflect ecosystems and human-nonhuman entanglements.

Origins and scope: Building on ecocriticism and the environmental humanities, ecopoetics developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries as poets and scholars asked how poetry can think with and through nature, science, and ethics. It spans formal experimentation, sound, translation across disciplines, and multispecies perspectives that attend to nonhuman agency and environmental justice.

Core concerns and methods: Climate change, habitat loss, biodiversity, and resource extraction are common themes. Methods include place-based writing, processual and experimental forms, ekphrasis of ecological processes, and collaborative or site-specific projects. Many ecopoets incorporate scientific language, indigenous knowledge, or testimonies from nonhuman beings to broaden ethical consideration beyond human audiences.

Forms and reception: Ecopoetic work appears in poetry collections, essays, performance, and public art projects. It informs teaching in creative writing and environmental humanities and interacts with activism, conservation, and community engaged art. Scholarly debates address representation, advocacy, and the limits of poetry to effect social change while highlighting aesthetic and cognitive value.

See also: Ecocriticism; Environmental humanities; Green poetry; Climate change literature.