The Ecological Impact of Words: Exploring Whether All Writing Needs to Be Environmental
Written by Matti V.
In 2018, Camille T. Dungy, an African-American poet and professor, who has written extensively regarding the environment, published the essay “Is All Writing Environmental Writing?” in the Georgia Review. Dungy, an advocate for the inclusion of African-American writers in the conversation surrounding the natural world, has argued there is a lack of inclusion of African-American voices in the nature poetry genre Her essay emphasizes that in “the midst of our Planet's sixth greatest extinction”, writers must be acutely aware of the ways by which the environment exerts influence on their writing. Dungy shares that her own writing “takes off” when she stops “separating human experiences from the greater-than-human world” (Dungy p.70) (p.73). This is just one illustration of how her essay informs writers that integrating the natural world across genres of writing allows humans to recognize our environment, namely the fact that “we live in community with all the other lives on earth, whether we acknowledge this or not” (p.76).
The environment and its services to us — the provision of goods, land, and resources have been fundamental to our success and livelihood as humans. Acknowledging this reality, Dungy sheds light on a critical idea in her essay: given that humans as a collective are so dominant in the natural world, we are in a position of power on this earth. This holds a responsibility to write with “an awareness of the other lives we encounter as we move through the world”. This position of power is something that I reflected on deeply upon reading her essay (p.76). In my experience, I see that when environmentalists attempt to convince others to acknowledge this position of power, these individuals may interpret this as an imposition, rather than an act fulfilling our responsibility as humans. Using the history of human division, a division which “construct[s] a human into a beast in order to justify its degradation”, along with her experiences of racism as a Black child, Dungy creates an analogy for the mistreatment of our natural world (p. 76). In doing so, she illustrates the problem in views that dismiss environmentalist concerns.
When I reflect on this position of power humans hold, It makes me consider that we are not all equally responsible for climate change, nor are we all equally affected by it. The responsibility an individual bears to the natural world is dependent on what they gain from the environment and the financial motivation they have to degrade its resources. People of economic privilege who inflict harm on our environment do so out of indifference to our human responsibility; conversely, people in poverty bear the burden of environmental degradation and cannot act sustainably because of their financial situation.
Dungy’s writing is deeply provocative, and this is undoubtedly purposeful. It allows her to express her argument in a way that challenges readers’ assumptions about our writing and whether it consistently reflects our environment. However, I also question if in being so assertive in some of her points — suggesting that “what we do not value in our art reveals what we do not value in our times,” and that all writing must communicate something about the environment, her argument may be too harsh for some circumstances (p.70). Being ignorant of the environment is much different than having to consider other things first, and this is what brings me to question if all writing can, or needs to, meet her standards.
Dungy is aware that different people’s relationships with the environment are complicated — such as African Americans, whose history “in [The United States] complicates their ability and/or desire to write of a rapturous idealized connection to the natural world” (p.74). These complicated relationships dictate how, if at all, people write about the environment. Considering such relationships, I wonder if certain pieces of writing may not benefit from weaving in the environment, but may instead distract from their primary message. As a reader, I felt I left this essay with more questions than answers. This makes me hope other readers deeply question the text and its applications to both their own writing and writing as a genre.
If you’d like to read the original essay that Matti responds to here, please click here.
