A pacifist, which is what I am, can be the strongest resister, and pacifism the most defiant form of resistance. Same with language usage: I mix the old and the new to engage with a debate about protection, preservation, conservation, and respect of the “natural” world. I am aware of the problems these words carry in terms of implying complicity, because I am a poet rather than a speech writer. For me, because of this, poems can stop bulldozers. Not because they just say “stop bulldozer,” but because the intricacies of language challenge, distract, and entangle the bulldozer. I am using a semantics not of analogy, but of opposition. My words are intended to halt the damage—to see what shouldn’t be seen, to declare and challenge it.
* * *
I have not yet written the poems that go hand in hand with these actions, though I have seen them in my mind’s eye, because they happen as I interact and respond physically and emotionally to the world around me, and also they appear between the lines in my notebook, attaching themselves to broader ideas and counterpointing received systems of thought. Really, though, the activist moment that becomes a poem is often away from the incident or the moment of witnessing. It becomes a moment where the figurative merges with a politics of response, forming what we might term the “para-figurative”—not didactic, but still informed by a genuine political-ethical idea / l. Last night, for example.
* * *
Once again, around 9:00 PM, a strange and confusing noise arose outside. I went out to investigate. As all in the house described it, it was like a mob of injured birds calling out. I thought of the corellas—maybe some had survived and were on the block calling in pain. Flashlight in hand, I raced up the hill; then suddenly the noise intensified and I heard a rush, and the sound of feet.
Moments later, the sound came from a different paddock. I walked over and the noise became a mixture of growls, squawks, and screams. I shone the torch in the direction of the sound and two pairs of eyes caught the light. One on top of the other.
It was foxes mating. Foxes who’d been missed by the hunt. I turned the light off and left them to it. If ever there was a sound of pleasure and pain rolled into one . . .
The poetic analogy is obvious and irresistible. And that’s where the poet activist has to be careful—what I can take from this moment is no more or less than what I can take from the events that preceded it over the weekend. Foxes and corellas are both considered vermin. The corellas increase in number because of clearing and monoculture. Foxes were introduced in the nineteenth century as sport. Entertainment by way of killing them is sold as environmental, and yet the pleasure is all in the hands of the shooters and those who incite them. In this equation is the entire politics of what I write—in resisting through poetry the industry of pleasure and control that comes from hunting and exploitation of the environment, I am also, I believe, writing the survival and liberty of animals (including humans!).
Entire essay here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/article/238296
