30 CATS

Module runs in Terms 1 and 2 in 2024-25

Workshop: 1.5hrs weekly.

Module convenor / Dr Jonathan Skinner / J.E.Skinner@warwick.ac.uk 

(Module websiteLink opens in a new window: for syllabus and assignment details, links to readings, and other resources.)

Office Hours (FAB5.12): Tue and Thu 2-3pm / Book hereLink opens in a new window

This module offers an immersive, practical and theoretical orientation to the major "compass points" in ecopoetics: creative and critical writing engaging with the emerging set of environmental challenges now facing life on earth. Students who complete it will gain an introduction to some of the principal issues in and leading theoretical critiques of the environmental crisis, across a range of disciplines; sustained engagement with distinctive, and differing, approaches to contemporary writing in ecopoetics, with a good overview of major currents in contemporary poetry; and an equally sustained immersion in hands-on practices, resulting in a solid body of work, both critical and creative, and a comprehensive set of tools (and compass points) for further development. As the module explores both the creative and the critical dimension in ecopoetics, it supplements both courses in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies, where students may seek an introduction to contemporary poetry and an application of critical theory, and courses in the Writing Program, where students may develop their creative writing with a sustained focus in a supportive workshop environment. Students in both courses will benefit from the interdisciplinary perspectives of discussions pointing to future configurations of literary arts and studies in relation to the humanities, sciences and social sciences.

This module will be assessed through both critical and creative work: the first two portfolios each entail some creative work with a critical component, while the student doing the 100% assessed option can choose the emphasis of the final portfolio, whether critical or creative.

Intermediate Year (100% Assessed): Portfolio of field-based writing (Term 1, Unit 1, 1500 words) 20% ; Ecopoetics portfolio (Term 1, Unit 2, 1500 words) 30% ; Final portfolio (Term 2, 3000 words) 50%

Finalist (100% Assessed): Portfolio of field-based writing (Term 1, Unit 1, 2000 words) 20% ; Ecopoetics portfolio (Term 1, Unit 2, 3000 words) 30% ; Final portfolio (Term 2, 5000 words) 50%

The details on assessment are as follows:

Intermediate Year:
1) a portfolio of field-based writing (5 pages A4 poetry, or a site-based project -- the poetry equivalent of 1000 words of prose -- plus 500 words of critical commentary);
2) an "ecopoetics" portfolio (5 pages A4 poetry -- the poetry equivalent of 1000 words of prose -- plus 500 words of critical commentary);
3) a final portfolio, with EITHER an extended poetry sequence (10 - 20 pages A4, the poetry equivalent of 2000 words of creative prose) plus 1000 words of critical commentary, OR a critical essay (3000 words) that must include some close reading of contemporary poetry.

Finalist:
1) a portfolio of field-based writing (5 pages A4 poetry, or a site-based project -- the poetry equivalent of 1000 words of prose -- plus 1000 words of critical commentary);
2) an "ecopoetics" portfolio (10 pages A4 poetry -- the poetry equivalent of 2000 words of prose -- plus 1000 words of critical commentary);
3) a final portfolio, with EITHER an extended poetry sequence (20 - 30 pages A4, the poetry equivalent of 4000 words of creative prose) plus 1000 words of critical commentary, OR a critical essay (5000 words) that must include some close reading of contemporary poetry.

Outline Syllabus

18 workshops of 1.5 hrs.

Term 1 Field-based Writing / Foundations and Definitions

Field-based Writing
1 INTRODUCTION (except where noted--follow the links--all selections are from The Ecopoetry Anthology): “Editors’ Preface,” Ann Fisher-Wirth’s “A Scattering, A Shining,” Laura Gray-Street’s “The Roots of It,” Whitman’s “from Song of Myself” and “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” Dickinson’s “#498/1400” and “Tell all the truth but tell it slant -- (1263)Link opens in a new window,” Frost’s “Spring Pools,” Williams’s “Spring and All,” T.S. Eliot’s “from The Waste Land,” Oppen’s “California” and “Psalm,” Snyder’s “Piute Creek,” Ed Roberson’s “be careful” and “We Must Be CarefulLink opens in a new window,” Juliana Spahr’s “Things of Each Possible Relation Hashing Against One AnotherLink opens in a new window” (selections) and “Gentle Now Don’t Add to Heartache,” Jane Hirshfield’s “For the Lobaria, Usnea,” Dorianne Laux’s “The /orgasms of Organisms,” Sheryl St. Germain’s “Midnight Oil.”
2 WALKINGLink opens in a new window: Thoreau, "Walking" (selection); Smithson, "Frederick Law Olmsted and the Dialectical Landscape"; selected walking poems by W.C. Williams, Frank O'Hara, Larry Eigner, Lorine Niedecker, Harryette Mullen
3 GARDENSLink opens in a new window: Virgil, Georgics (excerpt), Andrew Marvell, "The Garden," "Upon Appleton House"; gardening poems by Berry, Clark, Finlay (Ian Hamilton and Alec), Mayer, Paley, Patton, Vicuña, Whitman, Zukofsky
4 BUILDINGSLink opens in a new window: Robert Smithson, "A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey"; Brenda Coultas, "The Bowery Project," Kenneth Goldsmith, "Traffic," Ezra Pound, "In A Station at the Metro," Ed Roberson, "The Open," Occupy Wall Street Anthology (selection), Walt Whitman, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"
5 EXPANDED FIELDLink opens in a new window: Robert Smithson, "A Provisional Theory of Non-Sites," "The Spiral Jetty"; Debord and Wolman, “A User’s Guide to Détournement"; Maximus to Gloucester: The Letters & Poems of Charles Olson to the Editor of the Gloucester Daily Times, 1962-1969 (excerpt); Snyder, "Bioregional Perspectives"; Vicuña, Precario(u)s 

6 Reading Week

Foundations of World-Ecology
7 Nature Writing (William Bartram, Gilbert White) / Romantic Ecology and the Sublime (Wordsworth, Keats) / The Pastoral (Clare) / Transcendentalism (Emerson)
8 (Post-)Darwinism and Natural History / Age of (Deep) Ecology (Leopold, Carson, Snyder, McClure) / Science and Poetry / Wilderness (& Wildness)
9 ‘End of Nature’ / The Anthropocene (Katrina / Deepwater Horizon / Catastrophe & Elegy) / Slow Violence / Uncommon Solidarities (Standing Rock, Enpipe Line, Kinder Morgan) / Commons and Enclosure
10 World-Ecology / (Eco)feminism / Black Nature / Decolonizing Ecology / Environmental Justice

Term 2 Ecopoetics Compass Points

Compass Points
11 Sound and soundscapesLink opens in a new window
12 Documents and researchLink opens in a new window
13 Concepts and proceduresLink opens in a new window
14 SituationsLink opens in a new window
15 Systems and boundariesLink opens in a new window

16 Reading Week

17 Interstices and hybridsLink opens in a new window
18 Poetry/ essay workshopping
19 Poetry/ essay workshopping
20 Poetry/ essay workshopping

Set Texts 

Fisher-Wirth Ann and Laura-Gray Street, eds. The Ecopoetry Anthology (San Antonio: Trinity UP, 2013).

The Warwick library does have an eBook you can access through the library website, but I strongly recommend you obtain a copy of this anthology. It would be good to have a hard copy that you can mark up and bring to class—well worth the £17 price (or about £13 ordered secondhand). We will be using and referring to the anthology throughout the module.

Selected works by (amongst others, available onlineLink opens in a new window) Will Alexander, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Wendell Berry, John Cage, Jack Collom, Brenda Coultas, Larry Eigner, Kenneth Goldsmith, Allison Hedge Coke, Brenda Hillman, Ronald Johnson, Nathaniel Mackey, Bernadette Mayer, Lorine Niedecker, Simon Ortiz, Gary Snyder, Maggie O’Sullivan, Stephen Ratcliffe, Juliana Spahr, Cecilia Vicuña.

Recommended Texts 

Garrard, Greg. Ecocriticism, 3rd ed. (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2023)
Corey, Joshua and G.C. Waldrep, eds. The Arcadia Project: North American Postmodern Pastoral (Boise, Idaho: Ahsahta Press, 2012).
Guha, Ramachandra. Environmentalism: A Global History (New York: Longman, 2000).
Iijima, Brenda, ed. The Ecolanguage Reader (NY: Portable Press at Yo-yo labs and Nighboat Editions, 2010).
Russo, Linda and Marthe Reed. Counter-Desecration: A Glossary for Writing Within the Anthropocene. (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2018).
Tarlo, Harriet, ed. The Ground Aslant: Radical Landscape Poetry (Bristol, UK: Shearsman Books, 2011).