mónica teresa ortiz makes me look like Little Mary Sunshine. Like me, she was raised Catholic, but unlike me, she’s gay, Latinx, and working class. O — and she’s from Texas. So, she comes by it honestly. For instance, in her first poetry collection, muted blood (with its all-black cover broken only by a cow skull), we find a poem entitled “post hope,” where the speaker decries “tornadoes in Dallas. / In December!” It’s a short distance from there to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which
floods in permafrost. whether the weather is deconstructed. or not. we do not have more time. new varieties do not vapor into existence, out of nothing. The end. There is no injunction to “DO SOMETHING, PEOPLE — NOW!!” — though that may be a silent echo after the last line. But silent, nonetheless. Violence against Mama Gaia is only one type of violence, but is related, for ortiz, with violence against Queer people, violence against women, violence against people of color, violence against immigrants. Those connections become even clearer in her new collection, autobiography of a semiromantic anarchist (Host Publications 2019). The first part, “the waiting room,” consists of a series of vignettes from the poet’s life thus far — coming out to her conservative mother; coming out as a political radical; seeing 24/7 violence on cable, often committed against marginalized persons; and existing in a country where “men in red hats / replace men in white hoods.” Part 2, “sanctuary,” is a series of prose poems that weave together all these necropolitical threads. And ecocide is a big part of that: “I wonder how long it’ll be before them bald cypress trees will cough and die under the choke of a drought or sink underwater on ice caps fully melted and push the Gulf up past the tonsils of Galveston,” the speaker muses, and ends by declaring: humanity only cares about the core for its liquid gold we substitute oceans with plastic our civilization ends with fossils sealed inside the same ground where I now wait admiring the waterfall singing over bodies of limestone “Texas used to be a sea,” and here we can see it sinking back into one. “We of the Nintendo Generation,” as the speaker terms her cohort, try to survive and find one another, in the flesh or in the “digital abyss”: “We fuck under the conditions of economic collapse and climate change” — and colony collapse disorder, carcinogenic chemicals, hate crimes, tear-gassed children, the disappeared. All this can get you down: I wish for the planet to be habitable again, rid of assassins and intangible silences. I cannot touch either. Are we really surviving the Holocene or are we sitting anxiously in the waiting room of extinction, popping Xanax to expedite our forgetting? It’s a good question, and the link with the silences — both of the dead and of the estranged and alienated — is well taken. As for the poet’s native Texas, it “is a Death-World,” where “graves pile up higher than mesquite,” where people think they’re worshipping God when they’re really adoring Santa Muerte. The collection ends with a note of realism and longing: “I only want to exist / as earth and ash / my bones belong to me / even when I don’t belong / to the earth.” The people of the United States — “Americans” — are necrophobes living under a necrocracy; and autobiography of a semiromanctic anarchist dives under our shroud of happy-talk and hopium to stare it in the face as few other works do.
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jan. 21 thru today:
22 u.s. covid-19 deaths last week: 25 tornado deaths in middle tenn., u.s.a. 43 mudslide deaths in sao paulo state, brazil ≥ 20 pakistanis flooded to death — & all that was a good week in x-treme weather news. which goes to show when you’re dead you’re dead; pandemics top out but global heating is a gift that keeps on giving; if only we could be more rational in picking what to panic about . . . meantime, oil $ ↓20% (nobody travelling + not so much need for heating this winter) stocks ↓ co2 ↓ (when capitalism falters, so do emissions); & russian winter nonexistent ergo alcohol deaths ↓ ; namibia gets drought + deluge treatment: reservoirs full & crops & homes obliterated; “raft people” in thailand are high & dry & broke, as rice crop desiccates; mekong delta rice likewise drying up; & here in lawrence, ks., u.s.a., it’s raining, 53 f, yesterday’s hi = 70 norm = 53; lo = 47; norm = 29 — meaning spring is here 2 wks. ahead of schedule, wch is lovely if you don’t have allergies or are a farmer whose land is still saturated from last year’s flood & about to get all that meltwater from upstream. or if you are bird migrating too soon. lucky thing we’re not. The Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP), the largest organization of its kind in North America, announced this week that it will hold its scheduled annual conference in San Antonio, Texas, this weekend — with handshaking and hugging strictly prohibited. There apparently were heated debates within the governing body of the organization over whether or not to do so, given the spread of the novel coronavirus, or COVID-10, in the U.S. Recriminations ensued between board members for and against; the Co-Director of AWP resigned. And rank-and-file members are upset. Some are quite incensed that it was not cancelled — and have decided not to attend. Others are elated that they won’t have to hug people they only know through Facebook. But panels, readings, book fair tables, etc. are being cancelled right and left, even at this late date.
This is just one very small symptom (if you will) of people’s reaction to the emergence of what is probably a new pandemic, whose lethality and virulence is a subject of serious debate. But it is clear to people that something is happening out there in the physical, biological world that may affect them or their families quite soon. If anything, the lack of definite knowledge about the virus is adding to the alarm. And we’ve seen the effect on the economy: factories in China shuttered; cranes at Long Beach idled; stock market on a roller-coaster ride. All of which makes me think about the literary economy. The AWP is a microcosm — kind of like a Sundance for writers, where deals are made, influencers and editors are sucked-up-to, and old friends re-encountered. But there are a host of other literary festivals, conferences, and happenings across N. America, where the most successful writers become the most successful writers. Not to mention book tours or even one-off readings in other cities. If all of that is shut down, what would happen? Would people actually have to rely on their own aesthetic judgments, just them and the text? We might have a lot less time to schmooze and a lot more time to read. Or will they find alternate, virtual ways to connect, where hugging is not only prohibited but impossible? It may be that not being able to go very far for very long will leave us more time to read. Having to stay home from work for two weeks with nothing else to do sounds pretty good to this writer, right about now. The coronavirus outbreak seems to me a dress rehearsal for climate catastrophe — or, perhaps, like climate catastrophe speeded up to the point where people actually take it seriously. As Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert puts it, “Many environmentalists say that climate change is happening too fast. No, it’s happening too slowly. It’s not happening nearly quickly enough to get our attention.” Our brains haven’t evolved to recognize and respond to slowly-moving threats. It’s a whole lot easier to leave a smoky room than to stop smoking. “Yeah, I know the risks. I really ought to quit” — smoking, not exercising, drinking, or any other habitual act that might eventually kill you. But next thing you know, you’re in the hospital. How did that happen?? Unfortunately, geophysical responses don’t wait for everyone on earth to become cognizant of them before they do their damage, and much of the damage is happening or definitely going to happen, given the CO2 levels in the atmosphere. At some point, long-distance travel will become so dangerous, uncertain, and expensive that few will want to do it. Coastal flooding and king tides will displace many people (not to mention venues). Distribution and delivery of books will become more expensive. Or who knows: air travel may be prohibited (though this is unlikely to happen before it won’t do any good). Pretty much all travel is banned in China right now, and the CO2 levels in their part of the world has dropped 25% already. All of which is to say that writers, editors, academics, and publishers might want to re-think what “counts.” We might want to rely less on others’ opinions of others, and more on our own opinion of their work. Or we even might want to re-consider what literature is for and what role it will have in a more expensive, dangerous, and unpredictable world. the novel corona
virus steals the headlines from climate crisis -- this planet’s not big enough for two apocalypses but china emits 25% ↓ co2 now: if you want to solve climate crisis, just don’t go anywhere. . . . voila! “the only time we see e- missions seriously reduce is during a recession,” sez the economist; but who wants a recession? wettest feb. ever in u.k. no “meteorological winter” for kyiv this calendar winter; warmest-ever winter in s. korea warmest-ever winter in norway warmest-ever winter in denmark birds dropping from the sky from heatstroke in s. australia 28 dead in mudslides near sao paulo: “my daughter, which is what I loved the most in my life … everything i had, the water washed away.” “i spent all that night praying to god that this wouldn’t happen.” “today i slept at my sister’s, with her son in a small room. i don’t live where i live because i want to, but it’s all i have” . . . seriously, people! can’t we take it one disaster at a time? I keep thinking about Omar El Akkad’s novel American War. It is set in a time of X-treme climate alteration, in which coastlines have drawn dramatically inland and snow only exists occasionally in Alaska. It’s a first novel by a Canadian writer who’s primarily done journalistic writing about war zones in the Middle East. And the dynamics he saw there — the backstabbing, sellouts, revenge killings, external manipulation, more revenge killings, etc. — are all present in the novel. In it, the South secedes again — this time, over prohibitions of fossil fuel use. At the time of the novel, only Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia (“The MAG”) continue to resist. And it seems that most everyone there has forgotten what the fight was about originally: it’s devolved into pure “Us vs. Them.”
It’s a pretty good first novel — certainly better than some fifth novels I’ve read. El Akkad wants to maintain thematic focus, so amazingly, white and African-American Southerners have somehow buried their differences in the fight against a common foe. (As someone who grew up in the deep South, that feature undermines the verisimilitude.) But the thought-exercise is very much germane to our present situation. What would happen if a climate-conscious candidate were elected President? If the government, under any administration, attempts radically to alter the way that people heat their homes and travel from home to work? The gun-rights advocates are the ones with the guns — and the ones who feel put upon by the eastern liberal elites. So, the potential for violent dissension (if not civil war) certainly exists. If they won’t let you take their guns away, they’re certainly not going to let you take their gas-powered pick-up trucks. A friend of mine, who has had experience in politics at state, national, and international levels, sees the conflict as being less about region than about city vs. country. He envisions a balkanized patchwork of local militias and warlords — not unlike the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Or, as he put it: “Lots of checkpoints manned by good ol boys between Nashville and Memphis.” Or between Topeka and Kansas City. Rural residents only make up 19% of the US population (a percentage that is shrinking). But that's enough people to seriously mess up inter-city travel. And one could easily imagine a balkanized USA, in which the coasts are cut off from one another by a landlocked, resentful heartland. American War also features a plague, not unlike Margaret Atwood’s cli-fi novel The Year of the Flood. In a world governed increasingly by apocalyptic death cults, it makes sense that somebody would use genetically-engineered bio-weapons, at some point. Then again, we know that shifting temps and weather patterns — and more people on the move — promotes the spread of certain pathogens (e.g., those spread by parasitic insects). Indeed, an argument could be made (and has been) that CoViD-19 spread to humans because of increasing contact with animals coming ever closer to human settlement, looking for food and water (and in some cases, being eaten themselves). In any case, we’ve seen examples from around the world of what happens when you raise taxes on hydrocarbon fuels or ration their use: people rebel. I have a hard time imagining a US where the transition to sustainable energy has been made seamlessly, in time to avoid the worst effects of climate mayhem. But I don’t have to imagine the country divided against itself, in large part due to conflict over the climate crisis. glamour magazine (u.k.) sez
u can cure climate anxiety by mindfulness: “begin with an attitude of acceptance & welcoming” — and y not? since it's happening w/ or w/o you: cyclone idai still immiserates zimbabwe, one year on: 8 m people facing starvation, many families still unhoused, $1 b needed to recover (fat chance . . .); it’s still raining in s.e. tanzania (21 k people displaced) & in congo (200 k affected); w. java “on brink of crop failure” from pouring-down rain (“agricultural experts have warned that climate change has begun to affect food production in parts of country (hmm . . . you think?) warmest-ever winter in belarus, warmest-ever winter in hong kong, warmest-ever in moscow, warmest-ever in switzerland dryest-ever feb. in no. calif. (wildfire season already there); record heat in feb. in so.cal., wettest ever feb. in nederland; dryest ever feb. in malta; record rainfall in tehran, & u.s. great lakes “have gone from record low to record high in record time” 3 tornadoes in middle tenn., 22 people dead (part of increased # of tornadoes in s.e.) & my cousin’s office roof gone in the yorkshire town of snaith (yes, that’s its real name), rising waters forced evacuations 46 mi. to hull (“i wanted to go in & get the children’s toys, but my wife told me if i went back in i would be killed.”) — 82 flood warnings still in effect (u.k.) and then this: no ice wine from germany this year! -- harvests failed for first time b/c . . . well, they didn’t freeze . . . so, ground yourself; adopt a positive orientation; “find harmonic solutions”; and just breathe just breathe just breathe just breathe The idea of species extinction is different than one’s personal death. In the past, you could be assured that the human race would carry on without you – and maybe include some of your DNA in the form of offspring and descendants. But how cold and lonely it is to imagine everyone going out with you! No one left to witness and adjust (or drive the car).
For each of us, there is no “after we die” – at least not on this plane. It just stops – like the end of the credits after the movie, or like total body anesthesia (only in this case, you don’t necessarily wake up after what seems like only a moment). There won’t be anyone there to remember the sensation of being you. And if everyone else dies, there won’t be anyone who remembers humans. It will be as though we never existed. We say “there’s not the political will” to change things before it’s too late, which is another way of saying that “will” is an entirely individual phenomenon. Because there is no “us” – no such thing as a collective will. Only a lot of I’s who sometimes join together in bands or tribes by necessity or force. What difference does it make, really, whether I drive a car or not? The carbon dioxide is going to come from somewhere. And “we” writers are no different: each of us is intent on making our individual reputations and readerships (if we can), schmoozing up some, cutting others out. We fly across the sea to conferences to discuss environmental writing or give a reading of ecopoetry. We try to raise our kids as best we can, and we hope someone (else) will preserve a future for them. We write Facebook posts expressing shock and anger over creeping fascism. Greater love hath no person. It’s happening, folks. And if it hasn’t happened to you, it will soon. A few more years of relatively “normal” life, writing, publishing, maybe teaching? Or is it time to risk it all, go all in – accept bankruptcy, ridicule, injury, imprisonment, death, anything to try to slow down the destruction of everyone and everything you love? Even trying to adapt to the changes already happening is going to mean a much more radical change to our lives in the global north than we can appreciate. And it’s probably going to happen sooner than we think. Climate chaos will displace 200 million people in the next 30 years. What kind of poem would you make out of that? 200 million people with no choice but move. |
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June 2021
Kristin Prevallet Author/Editor
I'm a writer & teacher in Lawrence, Kansas who actually believes the scientists. I wrote a book of poems called Of Some Sky that seems to have something to do with all this. |