The Shape of the World: Poetry and Ecology

If imagination can “open us to an ethical sensitivity,” as the philosopher Richard Kearney says, poetry shows us how we can be opened. It reveals how we might be other. What would it be like to be bees overcome by neonicotinoids? What would it be like to be a river contaminated by PCBs or a forest decimated by clearcut? Not only does poetry show us, it provides a critique of ways of thinking that have led to environmental devastation. It can also help us understand interconnectedness, ecological thinking that might bring us closer to wisdom.