ABSTRACT
This chapter explores nonhuman vibrational poiesis, beginning with the activity of some arachnids. It discusses of the poiesis of the web gives way to a series of close readings where poets have taken seriously the vibrational poiesis of arachnids or of insects. At the 2015 Association for the Study of Literature and Environment conference, Jonathan Skinner explored "vibrational poetics." Many writers have grappled with the vibrational energy of arachnids and insects, but the chapter focuses on just three: Ursula K. Le Guin, W. S. Merwin, and Walt Whitman. To push the language question, Le Guin suggests that the buzzing vibrational energy of insects' amounts to "syllables"—a kind of protolanguage that hinges on, nonetheless, signs and interpretations of signs. Provocatively, the lizard, poet, elephant, palm forest all "imbibe" the vibrational energy of rain. The premise for Holding on suggests that the energy of semiosis, which burgeons toward poiesis, and the vibrational energy of Gaia are all interrelated.
