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Archival photo of bird with oil: (cc) Paul (talk) at Flckr/Wikimedia
Got Gulf Oil? Call for Work…
Please consider sending something along in solidarity – once we have enough work posted, we’ll start sharing with media outlets – thanks.
Poets for Living Waters is a poetry action in response to the Gulf Oil Disaster of April 20, 2010, one of the most profound man-made ecological catastrophes in history. Former US Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky describes the popularity of poetry after 9/11 as a turn away from the disaster’s overwhelming enormity to a more manageable individual scale. As we confront the magnitude of this recent tragedy, such a return may well aid us.
The first law of ecology states that everything is connected to everything else. An appreciation of this systemic connectivity suggests a wide range of poetry will offer a meaningful response to the current crisis, including work that harkens back to Hurricane Katrina and the ongoing regional effects.
This online periodical is the first in a planned series of actions. Further actions will include a print anthology and a public reading in Washington DC.
If you would like to submit work for consideration, please send 1-3 poems, a short bio, and credits for any previously published submissions to:
poetsforlivingwaters at yahoo.com
Editors: Amy King & Heidi Lynn Staples
Filed under: Ecology, Environment, nature, News, poetry, politics, progressive politics, US Politics Tagged: | amy king, call for work, Gulf Oil, Heidi Lynn Staples, oil spill, poetry, poetry anthology, topical poems
The Laughing Gull
Don’t separate the bottle from the cork
if you’re not certain you can put it back.
What it comes down to, see, essentially,
is this: the wings frail rigging from an old
shipwreck, the body sculpted to bats’ wings
and shrouded by black sludge that cauls the beach,
prints shadows in the shifting sand beneath
our feet. Not laughing any more, these scant
remains, set like the skeletal outline
of dinosaur we’ve chiselled from hard rock,
dead stuff deposited in salt lagoons
before the world we know was shaped and chased.
Our lust for oil part justifies their greed,
so we must bear some portion of the blame.
Peter Branson