Exophonic Ecopoetics as a Transformative Force: Concepts and Illustrations

Abstract

In the world of transnational literature that increasingly accommodates contemporary East European poetry of displacement, composing literary texts in English as a second, foreign, or an additional language has become a multifaceted strategy of personal survival, economic prosperity, cultural and academic exchange, political witnessing, and social critique. Writing beyond their mother tongues, voicing themselves from the outside, from a distance, or serving as foreign insiders and domestic outsid-ers, exophonic or non-native writers of literature in English seem to be extending the global poetic field in ways that involve various social and environmental concerns. Illustrating my claims with some of the ecologically-aware poems or lines authored by Bulgarian-born Kapka Kassabova and Yugoslav-born Charles Simic, I attempt to demonstrate how contemporary poetry of displacement, due to its attention to place and global mobility, emerges as equally preoccupied with environmental and social transformations on local and global levels. I also explore the potential of such poetry to create a dynamic platform at which ecopoetics and exophonic writing converge in producing poetry that simultaneously contains traditional elements of nature poetry, acknowledges contemporary concepts of natureculture and unnatural ecopoetics, and estranges itself through claiming familiarity with another language. Drawing upon Sarah Nolan’s definition of “unnatural ecopoetics” and its experimental potential, I propose considering the concept of “exophonic ecopoetics” when referring to contemporary poetry of displacement, its translingual features, and ecological concerns.