What Can Poetry Do For Climate Change?
An Argument with a Book by Thomas R. Smith
NOTE: This story illustrates how a practice of poetry—reading or writing—can be an excellent tool for living better in this worsening world. To see more like this, remember to subscribe. I am also sending this out on two other newsletters—Write On! and Arguments with Books.
If you want to read along, here’s a link to the book.
What is the role of a nature poem in a world where nature is under assault? If the climate crisis presents us with an all-encompassing, existential crisis as a species, and if everyone is called to make a unique contribution to the solution given their gifts, then what exactly are poets called to do? Poet Thomas R. Smith has written a book for our times that answers this question for poets of all stripes.
In this book, Smith does what few poets have even attempted — to give poetry a purpose beyond its intrinsic beauty and musical aesthetic. His quest takes him down two distinct paths — one a brilliant opening in the possible contributions of poetry and art to healing our current conflict with the natural world; the other an excursion into activist jargon that would best be abandoned and replaced with a new rhetoric. Let’s begin with the jargon, but know that the healing contributions of poetry are powerful and must be read.
After the book opens with an interesting survey of the history of nature poem, Smith opens a section that reads much as one might expect from a book about nature in contemporary society. In this section of the book, Smith teeters on the edge of the “speak truth to power” trope, a method of self-aggrandizing inflation used by political actors on all kinds of issues. But — and this is a relief — he never quite goes over into it.
The nudging close to that appears as he describes the contemporary nature poem: “In its more prophetic intensities, the contemporary nature poem sounds an alarm or a call to action on behalf of the earth.” Poems can, he says, “help us break that denial by bringing home and interpreting the immediately observable results of policies that amount to a war on nature…” The problem, of course, is that there is little indication that the people who are in such denial are reading nature poems at all. If not, the poem can hardly break their denial.
More concerning to me is how Smith follows a well-worn linguistic path for the discussion of climate change. For example, he says: “Looking about us, we recognize that our disdainful treatment of the planet may manifest no farther away than the block where we live…” Later, he adds: “Wholesale deforestation in the name of ‘progress’ is one of our ‘original sins’ against this continent.”
I object to the collective words “we”, “our” and “us” because this language works in direct opposition to what I believe Smith is working to achieve. Writers, activists, and yes, poets, will write like this taking onto themselves and the reader responsibility for acts none of them have committed, thereby leaving a gap in our ability to connect with reality.
While there is no doubt that the way society is organized has left us with this climate catastrophe hanging over our heads, no one I know is conducting “our disdainful treatment of the planet.” I mean, except for those wielding incredible wealth and power, who can treat the planet in any meaningful way? For sure we all participate in modern society, but it is also true that we don’t really have a choice. Neither did most people who did or did not participate in modern industrial society at the same level as Americans or Europeans. Don’t get me wrong… there is a problem with modern society. It is structured wrong, it burns way too much fossil fuel, it pollutes, wastes, and is profoundly unjust. But most of us have no choice but to participate in what we were born into. The question is, how can we take personal responsibility for that?
By ascribing responsibility to those of us who live now, the real message is this: The problem is that you exist. It is your being. You are guilty because you live.
Again, I don’t think this is what Smith is trying to say; we will see his unique contribution in a minute. In adopting the contemporary climate rhetoric of the day, however, he misses an opportunity to awaken readers. Such awakening is crucial because this message about existence is caustic on two discreet levels — one psychological and one sociological. Psychologically, it creates a dissonant resistance to the message. Assertions that we are responsible for all this lead inevitably to the opposite reaction: “I didn’t do it!” thereby strengthening the very denial Smith hopes poetry can break through. And in actual fact, the speaker of those words is correct. Climate change started with the industrial revolution, and none of us alive today were also alive at that time. Billions of people burned coal, oil, and gas since the 1750s. And billions more are participating at different levels today. While some people can identify with the collective participation in a long historical epoch, many cannot. Those who can tend to take on personal responsibility to lower their so-called carbon footprint or reduce their consumption. For those who cannot, the after-effect of “I didn’t do it!” becomes “So why should I be punished?” or “There’s nothing I can do.” Both of these outcomes are undercutting the only real solution, which is systemic change. That kind of change does not come from people who are hopeless, nor does it come from people who believe they have done their part with a lifestyle change. No… it comes from actually changing the system — for producing energy, providing transportation, producing food, heating homes, and so forth.
The second caustic effect of this message is sociological. The implication of the notion that your existence is the problem is straightforward; it means you should not exist. If you didn’t exist, there would be no problem. This is the core logic behind most genocides, and it is also the logic behind what Peter Frase called “exterminism” — the notion that some people are expendable. As Frase said in his book, Four Futures, societal elites facing climate catastrophe could eventually come to this exasperated question: What do we need all these people for? Climate activists pushing the message that each of us is responsible for ecological destruction are unwittingly leading us toward a bizarre and immoral logic that would say: “If we get rid of all these people, we can reduce consumption, reduce growth, and save the planet.” This is why we must pull ourselves back off of this notion.
Activists and writers across the climate change spectrum speak of our society this way. While this particular language is corrosive to hope, Thomas R. Smith and the poets he is talking about fully grasp the need for hope in these times. Over many subsequent pages, Smith lays out that need and shows how he believes poets can contribute to resurrecting and inspiring hope. Let’s turn to how he does that now, for it is a unique, and intriguing perspective.
In section III of the book, Smith argues that poetry can provide two unique healing forces: repair and enrichment. These forces depend on poetry’s involvement with imagination — far beyond the “journalistic” quality of some poetry, which may be nothing more than mere description. I like this lean toward imagination because it also goes beyond the previously mentioned trope of “stand up to power” political poetry. Smith has a chapter on the political aspect, but he doesn’t have a ton of energy for it, and neither do I. Political poetry is important for what it does, but political statements when it comes to climate change aren’t very impactful. Activists can carry that torch; poetry has a different responsibility.
Here, Smith makes a brilliant break. His thesis is stated cleanly: “Two related functions of poetry that I believe have the potential to alter lives, especially in lessening the distance between the nature outside us and the nature inside us, are 1) poetry’s capacity to repair our world, and 2) the accomplishment of that repair by what I call the process of enrichment.”
He goes on: “…my intent is to reach beyond the aesthetic properties of poetry to that place in which poetry is actually of use in our lives. What I am saying here about the practice of poetry can apply to any of the arts. I believe that these capacities for enrichment and repair are a crucial part of the reason human beings do art, beyond the appeal of the aesthetic or the lure of beauty, though these are also important.” (Italics are his)
Whatever the use of poetry may have been in the past, we would be missing its very essence to remain blind to what poetry does for us now. It isn’t just that poetry restores a connection to nature, but that it repairs the connection to the material world in totality. We can imagine how this need arises in the climate discussion, but underlying that discussion is the mediation of everything in life. Reality itself has become little more than mediated images. We watch a screen and believe that we “saw” something, when in fact, it was only flickering light. Concepts are conveyed through words on the screen, and we believe we “know” something. Rarely, if ever, do we actually hold a stone and contemplate it. We don’t get to know it — how it feels, how it smells, its unique sound. Yet this knowledge and this experience heal our connection with the world as a whole and nature in particular.
To see this, Smith brings forth the great French poet, Francis Ponge. Ponge had a unique method of the prose poem that focused on an appreciation of the physical object. “He consistently balances sensual and intellectual content in a way that satisfies both body and mind.” Ponge himself describes this as repair of the function of the world. Smith quotes him in a 1950 essay: “[Artists] have to open up a workshop and take the world in for repairs, the world as pieces, as it comes to them. From then on, any other plan is wiped out: it is no more a question of transforming the world than explaining it, but merely putting it back into running order, piece by piece, in their workshop.”
Smith describes Ponge’s method of repairing among the pieces of a broken world: “He does so by attending to them, giving them attention, not only in their demonstrably factual being, the physical reality of them, but also by honoring them with his sophisticated imagination and linguistically savvy intelligence; we might say that in the best sense he enters into play with them.”
At this point, I can only think of the potent healing power of C. G. Jung’s active imagination technique. Jung healed his psyche through this kind of play and taught others to do the same. Such play must be an essential method of healing ourselves and the world, one that refuses to negate reality, but also refuses to collapse into mere concretism. It holds inner and outer reality, celebrates them, connects them, and enlivens them.
Therein lies a description of the responsibility of the poet in a world of climate change. Despite the enormous conceptual battles of the climate change debate that demand our intellectual and conceptual attention, poets and artists must continue to point to, honor, and celebrate the sentient world of nature — both within and without. We must repair that connection. We must engage nature through play, contemplation, and imagination in a way that replicates what both Ponge and Jung were up to. Yet poetry can only serve this purpose through practice — the practice of writing and the practice of reading or listening. Creating the poem heals the poet’s connection. Engaging the poem heals the reader or listener.
First, Smith, an experienced instructor of poets, speaks to the poet’s experiences by observing them doing exercises designed to engage objects the way Ponge did. “Students assigned this task often report a sudden and surprising affection for the small object they have chosen to write about.” (p66). Can you see how healing this can be? The connection is restored. Affection opens. Suddenly, the poet’s heart is healed and connected.
For readers, Smith speaks of how poetry may alter the way we see the world, turning an “it” into a “thou,” to use Martin Buber’s insight. Readers come to appreciate natural objects, and nature itself, through the lens crafted by the poet. A good example is Neruda’s famous “Ode to Salt.” As Smith says, “We can never see salt in the same way we did before reading Neruda’s poem, a measure of the extent to which he has enriched our view.”
Do you see? Repair of the connection to nature was Ponge’s task, and enrichment of our awareness of nature was Neruda’s effect.
By laying down these notions, Smith effectively challenges all poets to a higher level of relevance and importance. After thinking this way, how can we judge any nature or climate-related poem that does not climb to these heights as anything but inadequate to the times? The rhetoric of plain, factual, concrete prose is needed in this debate where facts are so often denied. But poets should leave that to the essayists and opinion pages, for poetry has a unique contribution that other rhetorics cannot give. Smith has laid it out for us; now, it is up to us to bring our work up to the standards of Ponge’s workshop.
In other words, Smith is saying that poetry, and art in general, have the power to change how we perceive the world. If we can never see salt again in the same way, perhaps we can lead readers to never see nature in the same way, too.
In the fourth section of the book, Smith goes on to guide the writing of nature poems, which is probably useful to most poets. He identifies three main categories that are useful to consider: “the naturalistic or realistic, the metaphorical, and the speculative or imaginative.”
The definitions of these categories follow what one might intuitively expect. The naturalistic nature poem is more descriptive and borders, in many cases, on the merely journalistic poem Smith describes earlier. But such poems, well done, go further. They stay with what is experienced to be true to it, and many such poems carry much beauty. They are appreciations of the natural world, and thereby wake us all up. Ponge remains a great example, but Smith provides others, as well.
The metaphorical nature poem may be the most common of the three categories, and this is no surprise. It leans toward what Robert Bly called Leaping Poetry as the associations leap between the natural image and deeper realities. I love such poems because they add so much life and connection to nature, well beyond the mere description of the facts, beautiful as that may be. The result is an even deeper appreciation for nature and its relevance to our souls, and God knows, we need that sense of relevance now.
The third category, according to Smith, “…steps out beyond established knowledge to more adventurously interpret or extrapolate the perceived reality of the poem’s subject.” He holds up D. H. Lawrence as a great practitioner of this category. The poem Humming-Bird is cited, and one can see why. Smith says that Lawrence achieves this capacity “through his hard won ability to observe and honor nature not only in the world but in himself.” Although such poems may be more difficult to read, I appreciate them for the richness they bring to the full scope of the natural world, especially by including us humans in it.
These categories challenge the poet. They ask what kind of poem you want to write, and push the poet toward an opening of imagination. All of them, when well done, can help achieve the repair and enrichment Smith calls us to, so the challenge is to make them well done. As Smith says, “In our moment of crisis, it’s especially important that poets employ their own particular gifts however they can to open readers’ hearts and deepen our collective commitment to protecting and preserving life on our planet.” Let’s live up to that challenge.
Get Thomas R. Smith’s book Poetry on the Side of Nature here.
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