Title: Uncomfortable Ecologies
Author: Elizabeth Joy Levinson
Date: 2023
Publisher: Unsolicited Press
ISBN: 978-1-956692-600
Length: 100 pages
Quote: "A small herd of deer / grazes the rough shoots / along the highway."
This is a picture book; the pictures happen to be drawn with free verse rather than pencils. Each poem draws a picture, usually of a landscape or wildlife. Each picture then suggests something about human life. Only in a few cases are humans the subject of the picture.
Often the statement is about humans' relationship with the rest of the natural world, often in terms of ecology, and often it's somewhat uncomfortable. Beekeepers "love a thing that is dying--and the narrator, having been brought up not to fear bees (honeybees try to avoid stinging unless they're crushed or they think their hive is threatened), imagines that she could help collect the honey or move the hive and still feel only "something furry" at a crack between glove and sleeve, rather than "something fiery." An old man makes sure his children know how to handle the boat if something happens to him but does not discuss how to handle his medical care. "Florida girl" knows all the fishes, crustaceans, turtles, and insects by name, but does that only make her miss them more as humans crowd them out?
If you can stand a bit of prodding to raise your ecological consciousness, perhaps to observe and document yoour own "ecologies," Uncomfortable Ecologies is for you.
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