What’s an Ecologically Sensitive Poetics? Song, Breath and Ecology in Southern Chile

Authors

  • Stuart Cooke Griffith University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.60162/swamphen.3.10609

Keywords:

Ecopoetics, Ecophilosophy, Mapuche, Leonel Lienlaf, Australian Aboriginal,

Abstract

This essay explores the ecologically sensitive properties of oral poetics, or of written poetries with a close relationship to oral traditions. Looking in particular at the work of contemporary Mapuche poet Leonel Lienlaf (from southern Chile), I outline some of the important links between his written work and the Mapuche oral tradition. I then show how the proximity of Lienlaf's poems to songpoetry-and, by extension, to the voice and to the limits of breath-produces a highly ecologically sensitive poetic. Several parallels are drawn between properties of Mapuche songpoetry and of Aboriginal songpoetry, suggesting that a similar concern with ephemera, bodily location and movement can also be found in the work of some contemporary Aboriginal poets.

Author Biography

Stuart Cooke, Griffith University

Stuart is a Lecturer in Creative Writing and Literary Studies at the Griffith Centre for Cultural Research at Griffith University. He is an Associate Editor of Environmental Humanities.

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Published

2013-09-06