Contours: Poems

Abstract

Contours is a linked poetry collection that explores what we can learn for the Anthropocene by considering European Upper Palaeolithic cultures that lived in harmony with the planet’s energies and practiced heterarchical social organization. To write the collection, I used ecopoetry principles of relationality and organic form, and endeavoured to develop my poetic craft by suggesting natural energies and human entanglements with those energies. My Artist Statement focuses on the spatiotemporal crafts of form and rhythm. To appreciate the European Upper Palaeolithic cultures, I studied the biome and landscape in which those people lived, and I experienced and studied examples in cultural context of their robust production of artefacts and figurative expressions, primarily of animals. The collection broadens its wayfinding and attunement from the cultures of the European Upper Palaeolithic to include contemporary experiences in North America and Europe in classrooms, corrals, and community gardens. Poems in Contours weave etymology throughout, suggesting communication’s capacity to connect us with our expressive and social roots and to help us navigate change.