ABSTRACT
Despite a prevailing notion of poetry’s inadequacy to influence the course of climate change, poetry remains a storehouse for the things of nature that our species values and remains a useful tool for communicating the necessity of action on behalf of the environment. While poetry is no stranger to environmental protest, older ‘nature poetry’ is not as effective today because persons live increasingly in a technologically driven environment; thus poets must use new forms. Older forms of poetry separated humans and nature, but today’s ecopoetry melds the human and natural, often featuring a non-human speaker. Acknowledging the demise of the natural world in the near-future, some poems leave open the possibility of restoration one day. However, what is needed is hope now. The appeal of poetry is in its empathy, passion, even its rage, features too often lacking in journals dealing with social change. Some of today’s most hopeful poems about climate change focus on communal action.
