Ch. 4: The Brevity of the Planet: Environmental Loss in Recent Poetry by Contemporary Amazonian Writers
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Description
This chapter appears in the book, Ecological Crisis and Cultural Representation in Latin America: Ecocritical Perspectives on Art, Film, and Literature. Edited by Mark Anderson and Zelia M. Bora.
Chapter abstract: For native Amazonians, the clear-cutting of trees and the destruction of the local environment is made all the more devastating because they constitute not only a loss of habitat and biodiversity, but also the loss of the spirits and protectors who inhabit those trees and animals. This uniquely Amazonian worldview is also present in recent poetry from throughout the Amazon region and serves to raise environmental awareness in readers and engage them in an animistic view of the world. Their poetic work directly confronts stereotypes about the region, making it essential reading in courses on literature and environment. In the Amazonian worldview and its varied representations, the more-than-human world has agency and is inhabited by both protective and defensive spirits. The physical and spirit worlds are experienced as inseparable. In his introduction to (El ojo verde: Cosmovisiones amazónicas The ), anthropologist Fernando Santos Granero articulates the fluidity between multiple spheres of reality present in Green Eye: Amazonian Worldviews this worldview: “instead of establishing rigid boundaries between nature and society, human and animal, the sacred and the profane,” the world that exists consists not only of that which can be seen and felt but of multiple “spheres of reality” that exist outside the bounds of our immediate, tangible reality. As Santos Graneros writes, “indigenous worldviews are based on the multiplicity of spheres of reality, the permeability of borders, and the active interaction among all the beings that inhabit these spheres. The survival of human beings depends in large measure on maintaining a harmonious balance among the inhabitants of these different worlds”
ISBN
9781498530958
Publication Date
2016
Publisher
Lexington Books, part of Bloomsbury Publishing
City
New York
Keywords
Amazonian worldview, Environmental destruction, Agency, Indigenous cosmology
Disciplines
Environmental Health and Protection | Indigenous Studies | Latin American Literature
Recommended Citation
Larochelle, Jeremy, "Ch. 4: The Brevity of the Planet: Environmental Loss in Recent Poetry by Contemporary Amazonian Writers" (2016). Modern Languages & Literatures Books. 10.
https://scholar.umw.edu/modernlanguages_books/10