Bayou Blues: Ecopoetics of the Gulf Coast
Houston, Texas
A collection of ecopoetry curated by Aarohi Sheth
The South's land has a particular kind of poetry to it—one that's always catching its breath among oil rigs, histories, connectedness, heat, pollen, kinship, sacredness, wetlands, and flash floods.
And ecopoetry has long been a space to reimagine a climate future in which we survive. It's a way to a world inside us—and beyond us. It urges us to sit with words until they become shades of growth, bloom, and decay. But ecopoetry doesn't just encompass the wonder of nature and "finding" oneself, but labor and dailiness.
Camille Dungy, editor of anthology Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry, writes on the art of welcoming light and motherhood as well as the lynching of Black folks and the ancestry of nature. In his essay "Among the Trees," Carl Phillips meditates on how forests became a haven for queer intimacy. Lucille Clifton's pared-down poetry has presence, as she takes readers through the world of her body, "the green of Jesus," and Black ecotheology. With this section, I hope to pay tribute to these poets and the lands they hold with such love and care.
As this is Hurricane Season's first ecopoetry series, it involves a homecoming of sorts, just like all creative endeavors (eventually) do. This year, it's centering on my hometown of Houston, Texas because without the city—and its raindrops splattering on the leaves, cutting the heat; the barbequed, prayer-filled air and rain-swollen sky; the endless affair of moving just to flood again; and the sticky humidity that starts to feel like a hug once you've been in its grasp too long—I would have never become a poet myself. May this series be an invitation into Houston's landscape, freedom, and future.
A huge thanks to some of my favorite Houston-based poets, Maha Abdelwahab, Jack Morillo, and Joshua Burton, for contributing their works. Y'all's words and energies keep reminding me why Houston forever has my heart. Even through hurricane season.
Hope y'all enjoy,
Aarohi
