River Reach: Chicagoland, riverine reflections and settler harm-reduction poetry

Both case report and epic, ‘River Reach’ is an exploratory anamnesis that presents a metamodern embodied reflection of systems entanglement – exposing attunements to and longings for a place-based riverine kinship capable of addressing a national heritage of displacements, immigrations, and enslavement. To improve state compliance with the US Clean Water Act, Graue Mill dam on Salt Creek at Fullersburg Woods (Oak Brook, IL) will be removed in coming months for creek restoration and re-realignment, creating a point of collision and potential among pasts and futures. ‘River Reach’ is a hyperlocal example of a practical, approachable step toward decolonial poetry and community – examining the insularities and permeabilities of whiteness while encouraging personal, deliberate engagement in the preparatory work required for recalibrating national identity cooperatively. As a centering poem for settler harm reduction and an adjunctive tool for collective action, the piece invites participants into a mimetic rehabitation of relationship through nature. ‘River Reach’ may be performed collectively in collaboration with movement, audiovisual elements, and facilitated reader/audience participation.