Book chapter
Last Migrations: The Poetry of Migratory Birds
Poetry and the Global Climate Crisis, pp.55-68
Routledge, First edition
2023
Metrics
48 Record Views
Abstract
Poets have long been fascinated with migratory birds, which appear as markers of the seasons, and as symbols of freedom, mystery, and longing. In a time of climate emergency, however, the poetics of migratory birds has a new urgency. As citizens of the globe, they are uniquely vulnerable to environmental disruption to their destinations and along their routes. Birds' migratory ability is a source of wonder, and poets attempt to capture the strangeness of their capacity to navigate vast distances and to decide when to leave. It is this leaving, however, that prefigures the possibility of permanent loss. Like migratory birds themselves, this chapter moves back and forth between hemispheres, bringing Scotland-based poets Kathleen Jamie, Don Paterson, and Jen Hadfield into conversation with Australian poets Judith Wright, Les Murray, and Jill Jones. Birds, of course, do not recognise national borders, and while these poets may share nationalities, they inhabit, and write from, different bioregions. Our reading through an ecological lens foregrounds the material world and science, while playing down those symbolist elements for which avian poetry is, perhaps, most famous. With reference to the literal birds the poems address - and drawing on zoopoetics, extinction studies, and ecocriticism - the chapter can teach how poetry about migratory birds presents unique opportunities to engage with questions of extinction, climate change, global belonging, and the precarity of survival in the Anthropocene.
Details
- Title
- Last Migrations: The Poetry of Migratory Birds
- Creators
- Melanie Duckworth (Author) - Østfold University CollegeAidan Coleman (Author) - Southern Cross University
- Contributors
- Amatoritsero Ede (Editor)Sandra Lee Kleppe (Editor)Angela Sorby (Editor)
- Publication Details
- Poetry and the Global Climate Crisis, pp.55-68
- Publisher
- Routledge; London
- Edition
- First edition
- Identifiers
- 991013143591802368
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Education
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Book chapter