Sarah Warren

ABSTRACT In an era of environmental catastrophe, anxiety about our roles—both destructive and productive—in protecting the natural goods and landscapes underpinning our existence have reached a fever pitch. Extreme weather ravaging our communities takes on terrifying, even sublime, proportions; grief for what has been lost and anxiety what about remains, yet precariously, binds us in a terrible double-helix of negative affect. This article asks: what resources can ecopoetry offer us in formulating meanings that transform brute events that overwhelm us into opportunities for resilience and positive transformation? Drawing on John Dewey’s metaphysics and aesthetics for theoretical grounding, but focusing on his essay “Events and Meanings” and the role of communication in making sense of hardship, this article proposes an ecopoetic approach to reconciling ourselves with the environmental problems of today without resigning ourselves to environmental defeatism, recognizing opportunities for renewed understandings and approaches that negotiate self and world.