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Poet's Dark Take on Nature and Self
9 May
Summary
- Poems explore environmental damage and human impact on ecosystems.
- Solie's work balances wit and a profound sense of tragedy.
- Collection questions self-minimization as a response to planetary harm.
Karen Solie's seventh book, "Wellwater," offers a collection of ecopoetic and potentially anticapitalist poems. Solie's distinctive style, characterized by a light touch and sharp wit, belies a deeper tragic sensibility as she examines ecosystems and environmental degradation. The poems explore a provocative idea: in the face of humanity's ecological impact, could minimizing the individual self in writing lessen further harm?
Set against prairie backdrops and in chilly northern cities, the poems weave together memory and keen observation. Solie reflects on childhood experiences, like drawing well water underage, and the mistakes of the past, such as the pervasive use of herbicides like glyphosate. The collection also confronts the arrival of industrial forces, with frackers appearing seemingly without warning.
"Wellwater" features Solie's skill in crafting memorable aphorisms, such as "Purity is not a passive quality" and "Money buys the knowledge it isn't everything." She artfully juxtaposes pastoral beauty with colonial history, noting the ancestral lands of Indigenous peoples before settlement and the subsequent environmental changes. Her use of metaphor and simile is striking, as seen in her description of "vulgar muffins, overstuffed as geese."
The collection also delves into themes of elegy and the 'netherworlds' of basements and pantry pests, reframing these spaces as potential sites of alternative thinking or resource extraction. Solie concludes with a powerful vision of nature's resilience, particularly the towering cottonwood trees, which continue to thrive even as human encroachment increases. The book ends on a note of hope, celebrating the enduring beauty of the natural world.
