Exercise 9: Ecopoetry
What is Eco-poetry and why write it?
A writing exercise: try flipping your viewpoint to something else – a plant, an animal, a landscape. How does its view of the world differ from yours? Does it see differently, hear differently, smell differently? Does it have experiences that you as a human might have no words to express? Is it time to make up some new words?
Write a short piece to experiment with words, shapes and forms.
You are encouraged to post it to your learning log and share it with your peers.
We keep some orchids in our kitchen. They are gorgeous, evergreen plants with flowers that last for a long time. Seeing them standing there is a great feeling, beautiful, healthy, full of life. They want nothing from us just some water occasionally and direct sunlight. In return, they give us everything: their whole presence is a celebration of beauty, a celebration of life.
A few months ago, we bought another one. Unfortunately, we didn’t make space next to the window but left it in a more shady place and forgot about it; We had to get on with our daily routines and the flowers in our kitchen with their own lives.
Our little orchid began to wither. It gradually shed all the flowers and it stood there, miserable with faded leaves. A cacophony among the beauty of the others.
One day we realised that matter. We placed the plant in the sunlight and the miracle happened before our eyes within a week: the orchid paid our little world back by blossoming again!
TO BE AN ORCHID
The world is moving around me and I’m standing still
I want to show my beauty to everyone.
I need air to breath
and water
and the sun
to be able to be the best of me.
To be able to live.
I like it when people in the house listen to music.
I lose myself in the melody and the sound.
Yesterday a bee came in. She sat on one of my flowers and she kissed me.
People in the house started screaming and the little bee just made it out of the window.
I guess that kiss irritated people in the house! I feel guilty about it. But I liked it.
It feels nice to feel loved.
I love the sun.
It feels like a blessing when the warm rays sunbathe me.
I still remember that dark place where I was left when I came into my house.
I was crying for help but I couldn’t scream out.
I stood there waiting to be rescued.
Then the days became weeks and I felt weak and I started losing all my ornaments.
I stood there naked and embarrassed.
People were passing by looking at me shaking their heads:- she is not going to make it…
I felt weaker and weaker… My leaves my lungs, were yellow, and the breathing became heavier…
Suddenly, a hand just picked me up and left me next to the window.
That was the day of my rebirth.
That was the day I saw the sun again.
The world is moving around me and I’m standing still
I want to show my beauty to everyone.
I need air to breath
and water
and the sun
to be able to be the best of me.
To be able to live.
What is to feel, sense and understand but not be able to demonstrate that?
what is suffering from others’ actions but being unable to scream and get out of it?
This dystopian situation reminds me of the movie; Johnny Got His Gun
Probably this is how our orchid felt at that time.
Joe Bonham (Bottoms), a young American soldier during World War I, awakens in a hospital bed after being hit by an artillery shell. He has lost his eyes, ears, mouth, nose, and limbs, but remains conscious and able to reason, rendering him a prisoner in his own body. As he drifts between reality and fantasy, he remembers his old life with his family and his girlfriend Kareen (Kathy Fields). He also bonds with a young nurse (Diane Varsi) who senses his plight.
Eventually, Joe tries to communicate with his doctors by banging his head against his pillow in Morse code, spelling out “help”. He requests for the Army to put him in a glass coffin in a freak show as a demonstration of the horrors of war. When told this is against regulations, he repeatedly begs to be euthanized.
He ultimately realizes that the Army cannot grant either wish and will leave him in a state of living death. His sympathetic nurse attempts to euthanize him by clamping his breathing tube, but her supervisor stops her before Joe can succumb. Joe realizes that he will be forced to live out the rest of his natural life in his state of entrapment and is left alone, weakly chanting, “S.O.S. Help me.”
Johnny Got His Gun. (2023, April 18). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun_(film)
Although the movie was a minor success on its initial release, it was largely forgotten soon after by mass audiences. It regained public recognition when clips of it were incorporated into the music video for Metallica‘s song “One“, whose popularity subsequently turned Johnny Got His Gun into a cult film. Eventually, Metallica bought the film rights in order to keep showing the music video without having to pay additional royalty fees.[4]
I can’t remember anything
Can’t tell if this is true or dream
Deep down inside I feel the scream
This terrible silence stops me
Now that the war is through with me
I’m waking up, I cannot see
That there’s not much left of me
Nothing is real but pain now
Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please, God, wake me
Back in the womb it’s much too real
In pumps life that I must feel
But can’t look forward to reveal
Look to the time when I’ll live
Fed through the tube that sticks in me
Just like a wartime novelty
Tied to machines that make me be
Cut this life off from me
Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please, God, wake me
Now the world is gone, I’m just one
Oh God, help me
Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please, God, help me
Darkness
Imprisoning me
All that I see
Absolute horror
I cannot live
I cannot die
Trapped in myself
Body my holding cell
Landmine
Has taken my sight
Taken my speech
Taken my hearing
Taken my arms
Taken my legs
Taken my soul
Left me with life in hell
One (Metallica song). (2023, March 25). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_(Metallica_song)
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