Photo: Cat Gundry-Beck.

Date Night

The bottle’s empty.

My body is yours, just ask.

Paint me keen and blue.

Les mer «Poem suite / Gabriel Dunsmith» →

Although metaphor is often known as a “cliché” poetical device, many metaphors are so “normal” they are barely recognisable. In this article, I show there is a tension between the way basic metaphors entrenched in society, culture and language often stem from structures we ultimately want to resist (i.e. for the sake of the climate crisis, or other societal issues such as gender-based violence). And yet, by re-appropriating these metaphors in creative ways, we may be able to find space to overcome them.

When appealing to large audiences, such as in campaigns or protests, an effective way to grab the audience’s attention is to refer to well-known expressions or commonly shared experiences. In fact, this is one of the essential ideas behind branding and marketing – developing something audiences recognise and identify with. In activism contexts, referring to familiar expressions can be done in creative, subversive, and ironic ways, which challenge dominant narratives in society that activists often seek to resist. In this article, I’m going to talk about how metaphor can be our best friend or our best foe in these contexts.

Les mer «Using metaphor to make ourselves heard / Niamh A. O’Dowd» →

Trilogy for the sea

(1)

The narcissus’s desire

Draws abstraction for the finite

Picks, from my smell, an ink

And I still write.

(2)

A violet rests to steep

In this green storm

My pen swims like the jellyfish

My face is a rocky jut

My lips are a remains of moss

And I still speak.

Les mer «Three poems / Ali Abukhattab / خواء» →

Et planetært skred av hendelser

AD: Noen av de mest dramatiske historiene i boken din, The End of Eden, handler om sykdommer og parasitter som blomstrer opp på grunn av endrede klimatiske forhold. Du beskriver en enorm massedød, der 200 000 saiga-antiloper i Kazaakstan bukket under på bare noen dager . Årsaksjeden som leder tilbake til menneskets karbonutslipp er veldig indirekte og evnen vår til å handle på grunnlag av denne forbindelsen og faktisk gripe inn er også temmelig mager. Det virker som vi befinner oss midt oppi et slags planetært skred som ingen kan gjøre noe særlig med. Hvordan skiller vi mellom situasjonene der vi faktisk har mulighet til å handle og disse andre ukontrollerte situasjonene? Jeg mener, er det mulig å lage et slags register, å systematisere det hele?  Hvordan vil du foreslå å tilnærme seg dette for å få et grep på situasjonen? 

AW: Dette er de virkelig vanskelige spørsmålet. Det er dette som gjør klimaendringer så krevende å håndtere. Det finnes visse historier eller beretninger om årsakskjeder som jeg kan skissere og som virker nokså umiddelbare, men som oftest har vi å gjøre med historier av denne andre typen, der det ikke er noen du virkelig kan peke på og si, vel, det er ditt ansvar, du rotet det til og nå må du ordne opp i det. Det er ofte vanskelig å være sikker på hva utfallet av handlingene våre vil bli. Kanskje vi gjør noe som virker voldsomt og forferdelig, men som ikke forandrer biosfæren nevneverdig, mens andre ganger gjør vi en liten ting som har en voldsom virkning. 

Les mer «Gerilja for naturen / Adam Welz & Anders Dunker / Guerilla for nature //» →

Photo: Tom Canning

Three and a half years since Raphaël died, I’m back in France, walking barefoot on the long triangle of land that he rewilded. He’s with me in the way he always is, but alongside us is a new companion: my little dog Mishka, whose white fur is already dotted with tiny goosegrass burrs. Still a puppy, she bumbles through the long grass, chasing butterflies, stopping to sniff a new smell, gnaw at a stick, investigate animal droppings, or burrow into a molehill until her face is caked with earth. A world away from the city, we’re surrounded by ragwort, gorse, Michaelmas daisies, spider orchids, poppies, cow-parsley, and vast tangles of blackberry bushes, their red fruits tight and hard. The pleasure of feeling the dew-drenched grass and soil on my bare skin, to smell the scents of fresh wild mint and thyme, and to see more insects and hear fresh bird-calls than I have in many years is deep and visceral. A few nights ago I heard a nightingale, and every day a pair of grey redstarts visits our veranda. In the nearby woods I find the eggshells cast off by hatchlings, and a birder friend who stayed earlier in the summer tells me that in addition to the blackbirds, carrion crows, robins, woodpigeons, swifts, starlings, sparrows, collared doves, magpies and great tits that we most regularly see, he spotted nuthatch, serin, cirl bunting, robin, house martin, firecrest, blue tit, long-tailed tit, chiffchaff, greenfinch, chaffinch, blackcap, goldfinch, pied wagtail, jay[LJ1] , and heard golden oriel, cuckoo, raven, jackdaw, turtle dove, melodious warbler, woodlark and tawny owl. 

Les mer «Epilogue / Liz Jensen» →