The Political Is Personal : Juliana Spahr’s Political Ecology

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Who is the “we” whom Juliana Spahr addresses when writing her poetry and critical essays? Why is the collective so important when speaking about the risks and dangers of capitalism? In Spahr’s views, climate change, indiscriminate production and waste, environmental degradation and human exploitation are part and parcel of the moral hazards of capitalism. In this chapter, I argue that Spahr’s literary practice and her activism are interconnected and side with the concerns of fellow poets and readers in a transnational community—Spahr took part in the original demonstrations of the 2011 New York Occupy Wall Street movement. Focusing on the many and the multiple, rather than on isolated singularities, I reflect upon her emphasis both on “connective reading” (Spahr 2001) very much associated to collective identity, and on her support of the local (flora, fauna, species) versus the global. Spahr’s profound knowledge of Hawaii, where she taught, researched and lived for several years, and her thoughts on impermanence and change, bring about a fresh and engaged language-oriented poetry with a strong insight into the physical and the material-political. In my exploration of Spahr’s poetic practice, word and tone are shape-shifters and run parallel to geographical and environmental displacement.