Climate Lyricism

Climate Lyricism is a reading practice that emphasizes how climate change is present in most literature, and how it affects the ways readers comprehend the world. It fosters a model of shared agency from which it can become possible to collectively and urgently respond to the catastrophe of our rapidly changing climate.

Format: Hardback
Length: 256 pages
Publication date: 22 February 2022
Publisher: Duke University Press

Min Hyoung Song presents a climate change-focused reading practice that emphasizes the presence of climate in most literature. Song demonstrates how works by authors such as Tommy Pico, Solmaz Sharif, Frank OHara, Ilya Kaminsky, Claudia Rankine, Kazuo Ishiguro, Teju Cole, Richard Powers, and others assist us in better understanding our daily encounters with climate change and its devastating consequences, which are intricately linked to the legacies of racism, colonialism, and extraction. These works employ what Song refers to as climate lyricism, a mode of address in which a first-person "I" speaks to a "you" about how climate change profoundly impacts daily life. Song argues that the relationship between "I" and "you" in this lyricism influences how readers perceive the world, fostering a model of shared agency from which we can collectively and urgently respond to the catastrophe of our rapidly changing climate. Thus, climate lyricism serves as a means to alleviate the sense of being overwhelmed and feeling powerless in the face of climate change.

Weight: 499g
Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781478015116