Ecopoetry Workshop: The Affordance and Pitfalls of Ecologically Engaged Poetic Praxis

The Program in Latin America, Caribbean and Latinx Studies is glad to present Valeria Meiller (Modern Languages and Literatures, University of Texas at San Antonio) for a workshop on

ECOPOETRY/ECOPOETRY: THE AFFORDANCES AND PITFALLS OF ECOLOGICALLY ENGAGED POETIC PRAXIS

This workshop presents three theoretical entryways to the concept of ecopoetry—understood broadly as ecologically engaged poetic praxis—: Anglophone ecocriticism, Latin American environmental aesthetics, and Indigenous literary production. Following a brief introduction about the affordances and potential pitfalls of “ecopoetics” within these three literary traditions, workshop participants will go on to read and analyze trilingual poems by Mario Castell (Guaraní/Spanish/English) and Martín Tonalmeyolt (Nahualt/Spanish/English). We will discuss how these poems—originally written bilingually by their authors in Guaraní/Spanish and Nahuatl/Spanish; and later translated into English—conform and/or challenge notions of ecopoetry as understood in different literary traditions of the hemispheric Americas. Combining close reading and theoretical reflection, this workshop explores how plurilingual literatures challenge traditional modes of readership and Western worldviews of what constitutes literature, language, and the environment.