"Earthscan from Routledge"--Cover. Includes bibliographical references (pages 212-213) and index.
Contents:
Introduction: poetry and science -- Evolving systems of (eco)poetry. A non-local habitation and a name; anthropos kainos: technology and the posthuman; Ecologies of mind: communicating ecosystems and systems of communication; Poetics in the Anthropocene -- "Life subdued to its instrument": Hughes, mutation and technology. Fishing: adaptation and contact; Living form and posthuman adaptation; Science, religion and the environmental revolution; Violence and technology; Crow: evolving myth/mythologizing evolution; Hatching a crow: mutation and poetry; Testing his metal -- "Germinal ironies": changing climates in the poetry of Derek Mahon. "Rage for order": ironies of time and place; A "chaos of complex systems": economy and ecology; Beautiful souls and simulative politics; Climate change and a new look at life on earth; Pious hopes -- The resistant materials of Jeremy Prynne. Coal and metal: conditions of landscape and questions concerning technology; Pertinent junk and the sound of information; The secret lives of plants and viruses; Mutating code scripts; Wasted fields and digested hydrocarbons; This difficult matter -- Conclusion: evolution, agency and feedback at the end of a world.
Summary:
"This book is about the way shifting conceptions of ecology, biology and technology significantly alter what it means to write poetry about nature in a time of environmental crisis. It offers a radical re-reading of three major British poets, Ted Hughes, Derek Mahon and JH Prynne, and their aesthetic strategies for negotiating the complex feedbacks between organisms and their environments in a technological world. Their poetry not only provides ways of thinking and communicating about ecology and biology, but shows how the unpredictable processes of thought and communication impact on organic life in the Anthropocene, providing a substantial challenge to aesthetics, ethics and politics"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.