Proposed Anthology

The Writing Tree: Canadian Ecopoetry
Editors Kevin Hutchings and Robert Budde

Writing about the environment involves the construction and contestation over the signs that constitute space, place, nature, and ecologies. The poems collected will question some of the central assumptions of ecocriticism such as the preoccupation with “nature writing,” the predominantly romantic perspective, and the avoidance of issues in cultural ecology and social justice. Ecopoetry recognizes ecological systems and their interdependence across artificial boundaries of natural/social, natural/technological, reality/art, energy/language, etc. It explores the relation between human and nonhuman life, and cultivates skepticism toward the anthropocentric mindset that dominates present-day culture. The anthology will establish a tradition and a movement through that tradition to the present day. Artists making “nature” a strange question that we have yet to answer.

Some of the authors that will be solicited for the collections may include:

Don McKay
Jeannette Armstrong
Tim Lilburn
Jan Zwicky
Louise Halfe
Robert Bringhurst
Daphne Marlatt
Laurie Ricou
Meredith Quartermain
Harold Rhenisch
Sid Marty
Jordan Scott
Ken Belford
Roo Borson
Joe Rosenblatt
Robert Hogg
Christopher Dewdney
Ross Leckie
Jay MillAr
angela rawlings

We would also be looking to reprint poems by such Canadian ecopoetic pioneers as Earle Birney Al Purdy, A.J.M. Smith, Charles G.D. Roberts, and F. R. Scott, and put an open call to writing organizations across Canada. A forward to the collection would summarize the development of ecopoetry and some of the theoretical groundings involved. There is no collection of poetry of this kind in Canada and, given the success and influence of Ecopoetry: A Critical Introduction (edited by J. Scott Bryson), The Eye in the Thicket (edited by Seán Virgo), and Fresh Tracks: Writing the Western Landscape (edited by Pamela Banting), there seems a gap in Canadian letters.

Watch for the open call and suggest any established writers you think should be on the list above.