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Eco-Dementia
Janet Kauffman describes “eco-dementia” as a paradoxical condition of humanity—a love of the living world while simultaneously causing and suffering from its destruction. Like other dementias, losses are profound. We lose touch, we forget. We don’t recognize our own home—the habitat that sustains us. What has driven us to exploit more and more resources, even when risking self-annihilation? Eco-dementia is not nature poetry, but an immersive language in the tangle of the living world that begs the question: can we survive this relationship?
The poems in Eco-dementia took shape in one decade of the author’s life. In three sections, Kauffman reflects on insanities and devastations, from the personal to the global. From her father’s Alzheimer’s and the ravaged world of his mind to the horrors of Abu Ghraib, Hurricane Katrina, and toxins in Lake Erie, as well as the planetary-wide ecological catastrophe of climate change. Yet despite this devastation, it is possible to surround ourselves in light and air, to touch the tall grasses we love, to step into water and shade and feel an intense, momentary joy. Kauffman’s poems show the bliss within the elemental richness of the natural world and also the violent distortions and grief at its devastation. Like learning a new language, we can see and hear words, sometimes understanding so clearly and other times not at all. Or as Kauffman’s father puts it, “I know where you live, but I don’t know who you are.”
The language of these poems is the physical material of a damaged world. Readers of modern and experimental poetry will treasure this collection.
The poems in Eco-dementia took shape in one decade of the author’s life. In three sections, Kauffman reflects on insanities and devastations, from the personal to the global. From her father’s Alzheimer’s and the ravaged world of his mind to the horrors of Abu Ghraib, Hurricane Katrina, and toxins in Lake Erie, as well as the planetary-wide ecological catastrophe of climate change. Yet despite this devastation, it is possible to surround ourselves in light and air, to touch the tall grasses we love, to step into water and shade and feel an intense, momentary joy. Kauffman’s poems show the bliss within the elemental richness of the natural world and also the violent distortions and grief at its devastation. Like learning a new language, we can see and hear words, sometimes understanding so clearly and other times not at all. Or as Kauffman’s father puts it, “I know where you live, but I don’t know who you are.”
The language of these poems is the physical material of a damaged world. Readers of modern and experimental poetry will treasure this collection.
- GenresPoetry
91 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 1, 2017
About the author
Janet Kauffman
19 books14 followersJanet Kauffman was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and raised on a tobacco farm. She teaches at Eastern Michigan University.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 27, 2017
Eco-dementia is defined in the beginning as "condition of humanity; a love of the living world while causing and suffering its destruction."
The poems that follow fall in line with this idea, in a number of different ways. The environment is damaged, whether it is the natural world or the infrastructure we've added to it. One particularly memorable poem mentions a dollbaby.
I thought immediately of another volume of environmental poems I read this year, Cold Pastoral: Poems, although those were connected to specific events of environmental destruction. In contrast these poems are more about small moments of realization and contrast of moving through the world we haven't saved.
Visually the layout of this collection is beautiful. Titles are mirrored and there is a lot of pleasant space.
Thanks to the publisher for providing me early access through Edelweiss. This collection comes out October 2017.
The poems that follow fall in line with this idea, in a number of different ways. The environment is damaged, whether it is the natural world or the infrastructure we've added to it. One particularly memorable poem mentions a dollbaby.
I thought immediately of another volume of environmental poems I read this year, Cold Pastoral: Poems, although those were connected to specific events of environmental destruction. In contrast these poems are more about small moments of realization and contrast of moving through the world we haven't saved.
Visually the layout of this collection is beautiful. Titles are mirrored and there is a lot of pleasant space.
Thanks to the publisher for providing me early access through Edelweiss. This collection comes out October 2017.
Displaying 1 of 1 review