The loss of nature: ecocritical discourses in Gabeba Baderoon's poetry

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Periodical article

Title:	The loss of nature: ecocritical discourses in Gabeba Baderoon's poetry
Authors:	Nkealah, Naomi Rakgope, Shumani F.
Year:	2016
Periodical:	The English Academy Review (ISSN 1753-5360)
Volume:	33
Issue:	1
Pages:	109-122
Language:	English
Geographic term:	South Africa
Subjects:	poetry literary criticism
About person:	Gabeba Baderoon (1969-)
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1080/10131752.2016.1153578
Abstract:	This article examines the poetry of South African writer Gabeba Baderoon to determine the extent to which her poetry engages with nature and its loss. A study of a selection of six poems reveals four interrelated findings.The first is that nature is constructed as both human and nonhuman, and that the two are interdependent. Secondly, Baderoon's poetry engenders anthropocentrism because it entrusts the human subject with the project of driving interaction with its nonhuman counterpart, and through human agency the subjectivity of the nonhuman is foregrounded. Thirdly, her poetry constructs the loss of the human as synchronous with the loss of the nonhuman. Lastly, Baderoon's poetry is located within South Africa's colonial and political history, and as a result nature becomes a tool for posing questions of social justice. These findings intersect at various points, and it is at these points of intersection that we locate Baderoon's ecocritical poetics. Bibliogr., sum. [Journal abstract]