Me

‘Environmental Justice and Posthuman Poetics’ (2021)

Anne Karhio: ‘Environmental Justice and Posthuman Poetics in Contemporary Irish Poetry’, Nordic Irish Studies Network Biennial Conference, Åbo Akademi University, Finland. (6/5/2021)

(Páipéar comdhála / Conference Paper)

Abstract: This presentation addresses the idea of environmental justice in contemporary Irish poetry in the context of an emerging posthuman consciousness, and a posthuman poetics. This means the questioning of the centrality of the category of “human”, and exploring forms of engagement with the world as more than an “object of knowledge” or “thing”, a creation of “the productions of knowledge [by] the human knower”, as Donna Haraway has argued (“Situated Knowledges”). In the poems addressed here, environmental justice or injustice is addressed in specific contexts related to the consumer society, the effects of multinational capitalism, or the destruction of human and non-human habitats. There is also, however, a more profound paradigm shift in the implicit challenging of the human perspective as a foundation for a sustainable ethics, or the human as “the food chain’s top banana” as Leontia Flynn writes in “Second Dialogue” (The Radio, 2018). In a number of poems, this is expressed through a recalibration of the first-person verbal-visual point of view, as well as of sense of scale. The perspectives of non-human animals or machine perception often replace the presumed subject-position of the speaking voice. In Derek Mahon’s “Being a Dog” (Against the Clock, 2018) there is “no inter-species dialogue” to translate what the dog “knows” into human terms (or into human knowledge”), and Peter Sirr’s “Vision” similarly recognizes the “dog’s eye view of the world” (Gravity Wave, 2019). In the long sequence that forms the second part of Justin Quinn’s Fuselage (2002), the distinction between human and machine vision is blurred in the repeated image of eyes monitoring individuals at different stages of the global trade on consumer goods (“Two eyes watch the earth”, “The two eyes watch them all the time”, “the sky-hooked eye…of fluidity and ochlocracy”). At the same time planetary and microscopic scales co-exist in the flow of goods and pixels on screen, across the planet. Mahon’s “A Country Road” moves beyond the familiar trope of a rural landscape and senses, and recognizes how “cloud swirls on the globe” while “bacteria, fungi, viruses [are] squirming in earth and dirt” (Life on Earth, 2008). The speaker of Nick Laird’s “Feel free” (Feel Free, 2018) similarly seeks to “interface / with Earth” and while sensing “the presence of numerous and minute quanta moving…in unison”. In these poets’ writing, such an imaginary of the more-than-human domain is also a prerequisite for a meaningful framework of environmental justice.

Torthaí Taighde eile
OTHER Research Outputs 

See All Outputs | Tuilleadh Torthaí→

An nuacht is déanaí!

Want to stay updated?

Click the icon below and follow us on twitter.

Fadhb?
Problem?

Déan moladh!
Have your say!

Poetry in Translation 

What is the role of the poet-translator in an interconnected world?

This research strand investigates the political and the ethical aspects of the act of literary translation. How does literary translation by poets facilitate the circulation of ideas and the formation of conscience in a global context? Translated poems are included in this research as an important part of the Irish poet’s œuvre. This is a radical contestation of the view that literary translation is peripheral to the act of creative writing itself. Interesting examples of literary translations in a human rights context include:

  • The anthology Scar on the Stone: Contemporary Poetry from Bosnia (1998), published in the aftermath of the break-up of Yugoslavia, includes translations of Bosnian poetry into English by Irish poets such as Harry Clifton and Chris Agee, and into Irish and English by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.
  • The anthology After Every War: Twentieth-Century Women Poets (2004), with English translations by Eavan Boland, contains the poems of German-speaking poets who witnessed the devastation of World War II. Boland, whose poetry is renowned for its exploration of lived female experience, chose to translate poems that foregrounded “private vulnerability” recorded by these female poets.
  • Guatánamo: Cimí an Champa a Chum (2008), a translation into Irish by Gabriel Rosenstock of Poems from Guantánamo: The Detainees Speak (2007), edited by Marc Falkoff, is a notable instance of Rosenstock’s commitment to cultural diversity and his questioning of the hegemony of Western values.
  • Pádraig Ó Máille’s translation into Irish of Cahier d’un retour au pays natal, by Afro-Carribean poet Aimé Césaire, was motivated by his interest in postcolonial identity. In his introduction to Nótaí ar fhilleadh ar mo thír dhúchais (2015), Ó Máille stresses the importance of Césaire’s literary text as impetus to explore the postcolonial mentality and its impact on Irish language, culture, and politics.
Déan Cuardach | Search the Database →

English-language Poetry

How have Irish poets writing in English addressed human rights issues in our interconnected world?

This research strand focuses on how Irish poets, writing in the English language, have addressed international human rights questions and violations in their work since the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. It considers how the language of poetry can be employed to respond to specific conflicts, events, and challenges, which may take place at a considerable geographic distance.

Irish poets have increasingly recognized the role of media technologies and networks in transmitting news on specific events, and how the medium of poetry responds to the forms and rhetoric of news media, or the language of journalism. Information networks and digital platforms extend the scope and reach of both news reporting and poetry, but also raise issues related to political control, transnational power, and citizen agency.

In recent decades, advances in media technology have taken place alongside the growing environmental crisis and the escalation of climate change. The emergence of the posthumanist paradigm also informs a number of poems considering human rights alongside the rights of non-human life and vulnerable habitats supporting ecosystems as well as human communities. Such a change of perspective highlights the ethically problematic aspects of attempting to define the “human” or the “human person” as a distinct category.

Déan Cuardach | Search the Database →

Irish-language Poetry

What human rights violations do Irish-language poets address in their poetry?

This research strand focuses on how Irish poets, writing in the Irish language, have addressed international human rights questions and violations in their work. Our research shows that poets writing in Irish frequently engage with international issues of import. This challenges the conventional perception of Irish-language poetry as focusing on the language itself and on its increasing minoritization. For instance, poets writing in the Irish language in the twentieth and twenty-first century have addressed such varied issues as:

Chosen examples:

  • The suffering of those affected by nuclear bombings or incidents in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Chernobyl: ‘Aifreann na Marbh’ (Eoghan Ó Tuairisc); ‘Gaoth Anoir’ (Conleth Ellis); ‘Picnic i Reilig sa Bhílearúis’ (Celia de Fréine); ‘Chernobyl’ (Claire Dagger)
  • The implications of torture and incarceration, especially during the War on Terror: ‘Torquemada agus Sinne’ (Alan Titley); ‘Baghdad 2004’ (Declan Collinge); ‘An Ré Niamhrach’ (Eithne Strong); ‘Sceon, Tost, Seachantacht’ (Seán Ó Leocháin)
  • The minoritization of First Nation peoples in North America: ‘Bundúchas’ (Liam Ó Muirthile); ‘Damhsa na dTaibhsí’ (Séamus Ó hUltacháin); ‘Laoi an Indiaigh Dhíbeartha’ (Gabriel Rosenstock); ‘Nawak’osis’ (Dairena Ní Chinnéide)
Déan Cuardach | Search the Database →