Reimagining Human–Nature Relationships: An Ecocritical Study of Selected Contemporary American Poems

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the representation of nature and human-nature relations in certain poems written by contemporary American poets through ecocriticism. With increasing global warming and environmental degradation, the importance of literary analysis for understanding human perception of the environment and its behavior has grown significantly. Literature has received little attention within ecocriticism research and is predominantly found in novels, postcolonial literature, and environmental stories. In this study, a comparative ecocriticism approach is applied on five contemporary American poems. Data are gathered from the following five poems: EAT by Joy Harjo, Remembering a Honeymoon Hike near Drakes Bay, California, while I cook our dinner at the feet of Colorado’s Front Range by Camille T. Dungy, If Fire by Jake Skeets, To a Blossoming Saguaro by Eduardo C. Corral, and Heliophilia by Aimee Nezhukumatathil.  Through the use of a qualitative research methodology and comparative textual analysis, the study employs the ecocritical theory of Cheryll Glotfelty, Lawrence Buell, Rob Nixon, and Kate Soper to explore the way in which these poems reject anthropocentrism and form an ecocentric idea of existence. The results show that nature is not depicted as merely a backdrop against which human stories are told, but as an entity that actively influences identity, memory, justice, and belonging. Anthropocentric hierarchies are destabilized as nature is endowed with agency, environmental oppression is highlighted, and the poems bring to light the ecofeminist aspects of care and vulnerability to domination. Moreover, the poems illustrate the fact that the ecological crisis has much more to do with history, colonization, and displacement than previously acknowledged. Through this research, current ecocriticism theory is advanced, as the poems serve as a site of resistance in response to the ecological crisis, and contemporary American poetry provides an insightful literary answer to the ecological crisis.

Keywords: Ecocriticism, Contemporary Poetry, Environmental Justice, Ecofeminism, Non-human Agency, Human–Nature Relationship, Contemporary American Poetry