The rapid degradation that the environment around us is going through is plastered clearly right in front of our faces, but many of us fail to do anything about it either due to apathy or due to the innate feeling of helplessness that haunts us constantly when it comes to taking action on something that doesn’t concern ourselves or those that we have to protect throughout life.
Poets happen to be one of the most sensitive people out there, and it is with almost a feral nature that they feel protective about things that are not even connected to them directly but merely tap into the part of their souls that cares. They care, and therefore, they wish for others to care. The way they put out their best attempts to ensure that it happens is with what they know how to do best; they choose the medium of their art.
Poetry can be about anything and everything. It is an engaging way of demonstrating personal or common issues and it is with beauty that poems express what they’re intended to. And because humankind as a collective still hasn’t lost the part of them that feels sympathy, poetry is popular among the masses. In simple words, poems are songs without the music part.
Grieving the unbearably unfortunate turn the climatic conditions have taken is a humanly response. To love one’s home is natural, and what is Earth is not our giant, sweet home. What pollution and global warming have done to our planet is a topic of extreme concern and addressing it is nothing but basic decency. The poets never fall behind on holding on to a feeling and expressing it onto paper in the most beautiful way possible, and climate grief is nonetheless another heavy topic they’ve lifted onto their shoulders.
Experiences, memories and feelings tend to be the basis of how poetry is withdrawn from a person. When a person well-connected with nature who easily falls prey to empathy recognizes the breakdown that it faces on the daily, there is a wave within them that urges them to do something about it. For the fighters, it is protest and for those with tender hearts, poetry is a solution and solace at the same time.
India is a land of diverse cultures and differing point of view. In a land of such rich, varied opinions, poets rarely leave behind something that needs to be addressed. Indian poets express emotional and cultural responses to loss of biodiversity, climate change, and the global shift in environmental well-being. They lament our degrading wildlife, an avalanche speed loss of resources, as well as how frightening the disappearance of nature as we know it is.
Ecocriticism is termed as “the study of the relation between literature and physical nature” by Glotfelty and Fromm. Nature writers do not merely focus on the beauty that nature possesses but also the impact it has on the writer’s psyche. Since ancient times, literary works have displayed a relation between nature and literature. Even the four Vedas contain elements of nature to act as evidence to back up this point.
Shiv K. Kumar is an Indian poet whose poems mostly poems are mostly based on the concerns he feels for animals, birds and insects and the effects of modernization and urbanisation on bountiful nature. Most of the poems in his collection “Which of my Selves do you Wish to Speak to?” highlight his feelings about the current awful environmental conditions in India.
His poem “Cleansing Ganga” talks about the dirtying that the holy river faces day by day due to the reckless immersion of bones, ashes and dips people take in the name of religious practice. The poetry reads:
The waters then get sullied by ritual and dogma—
The water pollution that degrades several such rivers like Ganga and causes human interference in the natural life cycle of processes of aquatic animals, as well as surrounding lands that rely on these rivers to survive. Water and sanitation are a major issue and a prime concern on India grounds. The World Bank has issued warnings that if no action is taken to preserve clean water for use, then India might face a water crisis in 20 years. And we all know, water keeps us alive and without it, there are days before the human species goes extinct.
Focusing on Delhi as a city, Kumar raises concerns about how quickly it is diminishing despite being the epicentre of the nation’s concerns.
The ring Road that tightens its noose around your neck
Shiv K. Kumar’s poetic verses are examples of urban poetry being drawn towards climate grief as a topic of focus. Pollution and biodiversity loss have taken the poets’ romantic notions about nature’s praises to worrisome drawls and hopeless, distraught advances.
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