Ecopoetics and the Anthropocene: a conversation between Peter Larkin and Dominic Hand

Green background with photos of two men and the title

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The increasing pace of global climate change, species loss and other aspects of the environmental crisis are driving an urgent search for new poetic forms adequate to the times we live in. Many traditional poetic tropes have lost their meaning as our world changes.

That human activity is the major factor in massive change in the biosphere is no longer in doubt. The term ‘Anthropocene’ has been used by some to highlight this qualitative shift in the trajectory of earth’s history.

Poets Peter Larkin and Dominic Hand will read from recent work and will talk about the way evolving understandings of the ecological crisis impact on their work. They will also discuss what some of the elements of a viable ecopoetics might include. The discussion will be moderated by Simon Collings, and members of the audience will have an opportunity to ask questions and contribute their views.

 

About the Speakers:

Peter Larkin contributed to The Ground Aslant: an Anthology of Radical Landscape Poetry, ed. Harriet Tarlo (2011). Among his more recent books are City Trappings (Housing Heath or Wood)  (2016) and Introgression Latewood (2017).  A symposium on his work was held at Warwick U (UK) in 2018, the proceedings to appear in the Journal of British & Irish Innovative Poetry. A new collection, Trees Before Abstinent Ground was published in late 2019 and Encroach to Resume earlier this year.

 

 

Dominic Hand’s first collection, Symbiont: 50 Sonnets, was published in 2020 and received an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors in 2021. His poetry has also appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies, including Blackbox Manifold, Oxford Poetry, Reliquiae, The Best New British and Irish Poets, and The London Magazine. Hand is currently a DPhil student in English at Merton College, Oxford, where he researches ecology, technology and the nonhuman in contemporary innovative poetry.

 

Simon Collings is a writer and independent scholar based in Oxford. He contributed a paper ‘Short of nothing: expanding horizons of ‘scarcity’ in the poetry of Peter Larkin’ to the recent special issue of Journal of British & Irish Innovative Poetry focused on Larkin’s work. Collings most recent publications are a collection of microfictions Why are you here? (2020) and a poetry chapbook Sanchez Ventura (2021). He is a contributing editor at The Fortnightly Review.


Click here to register for this event

Please note that the Zoom link will be emailed to you via Eventbrite within 48 hours of the event. Ticketing will close 2 hours before the start of the event.


SciPo Network

TORCH Networks