Introduction: Finding a Compass to a Commonwealth of Breath

Abstract

This introduction is divided into three sections and endeavours to situate the present volume within recent theoretical advancements in the field of ecopoetry, whilst underscoring its contribution to the existing body of criticism on ecopoets. The first section, “Ecopoetry: Words in Space and Poets as Place-Makers”, looks into the main focus of attention of this volume in the area of ecopoetry, leaning on the main theorisations to date by some of the major ecocritical scholars. Section II, “Can Poetry Really Save the Earth?”, makes use of the title of John Felstiner’s eponymous book (2009) to reflect on the usefulness of poetry in the face of the rampant destruction impending on the planet in the geological epoch of the Anthropocene. This introduction closes with the section “The Fractal Structure of Modern Ecopoetry and Its Contribution to Ecocritical Studies”, in which the structure of the volume is described according to two different yet overlapping concepts—that of fractals and that of palimpsest—and describes the niche that this volume comes to fill.