"Ecopoetics"

Question: What on earth is meant by “ecopoetics”?

Answer/Quote: “…ecopoetics—defined here as the theory and practice of a creative relationship with the processes and products of one’s world expressed in writing, whether poetry or prose, or in some other medium entirely. More simply, it is the poetics of ‘nature writing’ … or ‘environmental literature’….” And the reflection and resonance that occur as a result.

Comment: I don’t know why I am passing along this definition of another piece of jargon. There is jargon enough in English studies as it is. But in case the word ever occurs again, my readers will be able to recognize it as poetic expression about nature—whether in poetry or prose. I am thinking of the essays of Loren Eiseley.

I thought such a definition might be useful. The article that explains the term is like Coleridge’s prose, alternately intelligible and unintelligible. I don’t feel like spending my time trying to untangle it. I did that with Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria once. RayS.

Title: “The Case of Cotton Mather’s Dog: Reflections and Resonance in American Ecopoetics.” Jimmie Killingsworth. College English (May 2011),498-517.