Chrysalis with John Fiege

John Fiege
Chrysalis with John Fiege

The climate crisis is a piercing call for us all to change—profoundly and quickly. And it’s not enough to just focus on changing our own habits—we must figure out how to collectively steer the ship of humanity in a completely different direction. The path we’re on now brought us to this moment of climate chaos, mass extinction, and environmental injustice, and we’re definitely not turning the ship fast enough. Hosted by John Fiege, the Chrysalis podcast features’s in-depth conversations with a remarkable group of environmental thinkers about their paths through life and the transformations they’ve experienced along the way. Our guests are great writers, artists, activists, scientists, and spiritual leaders whose stories can help guide us into new ways of relating to our environment, our planet, and the rest of life on Earth. We’re not searching for simple answers or magical solutions. Rather, we are on a quest for ecological wisdom and compassion. On Chrysalis, we embrace complexity and question dogma—in robust dialogue with one another that lights up connections and sparks our imaginations. We need culture change, not climate change, and that transformation starts with the stories we tell each other and tell ourselves. Join us at ChrysalisPodcast.org! www.chrysalispodcast.org

  1. 18. Sean Dixon — Puget Soundkeeper

    10/28/2024

    18. Sean Dixon — Puget Soundkeeper

    The tires of your car have a chemical in them, called 6PPD, that slows tire degradation by binding with oxygen and ozone that could break down the rubber. But these same reactions that protect the rubber are also creating a new chemical, called 6PPD-quinone, which scientists just found in 2020 to be highly toxic to aquatic organisms. 6PPD is in essentially every tire made since the 1960s, and aquatic ecosystems around the world, particularly in dense urban areas, are in danger. Coho salmon is particularly susceptible to the toxin, and salmon populations in the Seattle area have been decimated by stormwater runoff containing the tiny particles that wear off tires as they speed down the road. Now that the science is clear, the search is on to find a substitute for 6PPD; but for many years to come, the pollutants will continue to shed from our tires and into our waterways. How to stop the stormwater from getting to the salmon and other aquatic organisms is one of the many ways that the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance is advocating for the ecological health of Puget Sound and other waterways in the Seattle area. Sean Dixon leads these efforts as the executive director of the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, which is part of the worldwide network of waterkeepers. I discuss with Sean the work he’s doing in Seattle but also the waterkeeper movement more broadly and the importance of organized, community-engaged action to protect waterways and the diverse ecosystems that depend on them across the planet. This episode of Chrysalis is part of the Chrysalis Projects series. You can listen on Substack, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast platforms. Please rate, review, and share to help us spread the word! Sean Dixon As Executive Director of Puget Soundkeeper, Sean works with the entire Soundkeeper staff team, board, and network of community partners, volunteers, and advocates to drive clean water progress across the Puget Sound and its watershed. As an attorney, entrepreneur, and environmental advocate, Sean has worked for years defending communities and ecosystems from pollution, supporting sustainable fisheries, pushing for climate adaptation and mitigation, and fighting for innovative approaches to solving the myriad threats facing our oceans, coasts, and waterways. Before moving to the PNW, Sean worked as an attorney at Hudson Riverkeeper, a local sustainable seafood fishmonger, and, most recently, as Chief of Staff for the Region 1 (New England) office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Sean currently serves as the Publications Officer for the American Bar Association’s Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources, and holds an LL.M. in Climate Change Law and a J.D. in Environmental Law from the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University, in White Plains, NY, a master’s degree from the Yale School of the Environment, and a B.A. in Marine Biology and Oceanography from Boston University. Recommended Readings & Media Credits This episode was researched by Lydia Montgomery and edited by Sarah Westrich, with additional editing by Isabella Nurt, Amy Cavanaugh, Arthur Koenig, Kate Fair, and Marta Kondratiuk. Music is by Daniel Rodriguez Vivas. Mixing is by Morgan Honaker. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.chrysalispodcast.org

    1h 22m
  2. 17. Allison Adelle Hedge Coke — "When the Animals Leave this Place"

    10/21/2024

    17. Allison Adelle Hedge Coke — "When the Animals Leave this Place"

    There is a line in Allison Adelle Hedge Coke’s poem, “When the Animals Leave this Place,” that I find haunting: “They said no one belongs here.” She’s writing about land that used to flood cyclically but that settlers used for farms and pastures, against the advice of Indigenous elders and without regard for the seasonality of the rain. Embedded in these six words—“They said no one belongs here”—is the history of conquest and colonialism in America and the mentality of the control of nature, which, to this day, dominates our societal relationship to nature. The forces of nature and history and a deep knowledge of the land burst forth from Allison’s poem, along with a spirited and iconic crew of animals. Allison Adelle Hedge Coke is the author or editor of eighteen books and the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships. Her most recent book, Look at This Blue, was a finalist for the National Book Award. She is currently Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California Riverside. This episode of Chrysalis is part of the Chrysalis Poets series. You can listen on Substack, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast platforms. Please rate, review, and share to help us spread the word! Allison Adelle Hedge Coke Allison Adelle Hedge Coke is a widely-acclaimed poet, editor, and activist. She was born in 1958 in Amarillo, Texas and spent her formative years in three separate locations: North Carolina, Canada, and the Great Plains. Initially dropping out of high school to work fields in order to support herself, Coke completed her GED at age 16 before enrolling in courses at North Carolina State University. She went on to receive an AFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts and an MFA in Poetry from Vermont College. A recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship and the First Jade Nurtured SiHui Female International Poetry Award, she is now a distinguished professor at the University of California at Riverside. Outside of these duties, she works with underserved incarcerated youth and serves on multiple literary and editorial boards. Hedge Coke has authored six full-length books of poetry, her first of which (Dog Road Woman) won the 1998 American Book Award. 2022's Look at This Blue was a National Book Award Finalist. More broadly, her works have achieved wide and extensive acclaim. In addition to these collections, she has written ten poetry anthologies and an immensely evocative and powerful memoir, Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer: A Story of Survival, which discusses her upbringing, her story-cultural heritage, and the tumultuous experiences that have helped inform her identity, perspective, and journey. "When the Animals Leave this Place" By Allison Adelle Hedge Coke Underneath ice caps, once glacial peaks deer, elk, vixen begin to ascend. Free creatures camouflaged as waves and waves receding far from plains pulling upward slopes and faraway snow dusted mountains. On spotted and clear cut hills robbed of fir, high above wheat tapestried valleys, flood plains up where headwaters reside. Droplets pound, listen. Hoofed and pawed mammals pawing and hoofing themselves up, up. Along rivers dammed by chocolate beavers, trailed by salamanders—mud puppies. Plunging through currents,           above concrete and steel man-made barriers these populations of plains, prairies, forests flee in such frenzy, popping splash dance, pillaging cattail zones, lashing lily pads— the breath of life in muddy ponds, still lakes. Liquid beads slide on windshield glass along cracked and shattered pane, spider-like with webs and prisms. “Look, there, the rainbow touched the ground both ends down!” Full arch seven colors showered, heed what Indigenous know, why long ago, they said no one belongs here, surrounding them, that this land was meant to be wet with waters of nearby not fertile to crops and domestic graze. The old ones said, “When the animals leave this place the waters will come again. This power is beyond the strength of man. The river will return with its greatest force.” No one can stop her.           She was meant to be this way.                          Snakes in honor, do not intrude. The rainbow tied with red and green like that on petal rose, though only momentarily. Colors disappear like print photographs fade. They mix with charcoal surrounding. A flurry of fowl follow like strands, maidenhair falls, from blackened clouds above swarming inward covering the basin and raising sky. Darkness hangs over the hills appear as black water crests, blackness varying shades. The sun is somewhere farther than the farthest ridge . Main gravel crossroads and back back roads slicken to mud, clay.           Turtles creep along rising banks, snapping jowls. Frogs chug throaty songs. The frogs only part of immense choir heralding the downpour, the falling oceans. Over the train trestle, suspension bridge with current so slick everything slides off in sheets. Among rotten stumps in black bass ponds, somewhere catfish reel in fins and crawl, walking whiskers to higher waters. Waters above, below the choir calling it forth. Brightly plumed jays and dull brown-headed cowbirds fly as if hung in one place like pinwheels. They dance toward the rain crest, the approaching storm beckoning, inviting, summoning. A single sparrow sings the stroke of rain past the strength of sunlight. The frog chorus sings refrain, melody drumming thunder, evoked by beasts and water creatures wanting their homes. Wanting to return to clearings and streams where ash, or white birch woods rise,    tower over, quaking aspen stand against storm shown veils—sheeting rains crossing pasture, meadow, hills, mountain. Sounds erupt. Gathering clouds converge, push, pull, push, pull forcing lightning back and forth shaping windy, sculptured swans, mallard ducks, and giants from stratocumulus media. As if they are a living cloud chamber, As if they exist only in the heavens. Air swells with dampness.           It has begun. In 1993, Cid Corman selected "When the Animals Leave This Place" for the Charlie and Thelma Willis Memorial Editor's Choice Award (Abiko Quarterly, Kyoto, Japan) and Ed Friedman pressed it in The World, Poetry Project at St. Mark's. "When the Animals Leave This Place" is in Blood Run, Salt Publishing London & Cambridge, UK 2006, US/Global 2007. Poem reprinted courtesy of Allison Adelle Hedge Coke. Recommended Readings & Media Credits This episode was researched by Lydia Montgomery and edited by Sofia Chang. Music is by Daniel Rodriguez Vivas. Mixing is by Morgan Honaker. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.chrysalispodcast.org

    1h 16m
  3. 16. Kara Maria — Precious and Precarious

    10/07/2024

    16. Kara Maria — Precious and Precarious

    I love beautiful pictures of animals surrounded by their natural habitats. It’s exhilarating to see idyllic environments and the animals so amazingly well-adapted to live in them. It’s also comforting to know those places still exist, despite what we’re doing to the planet.  But there’s a danger in that exhilaration and comfort: these animals appear to live in a world so separate from our own, and at the same time, we might be lulled into thinking that this other world and these habitats are safe. Kara Maria’s paintings take a very different approach to representing animals. Her work features extinct, endangered, and invasive species, but they all float in abstract worlds, popping with color and soaked in the impact of humans on their lives.  Kara’s work is captivating. It’s also an alarm sounding about the dire threat that Earth’s biodiversity faces in the age of humans. Her paintings of animals bring the biodiversity crisis to our front doorstep and spur us to think about how our actions are at the root of the ecologically devastating changes happening around the world. Kara Maria is based in San Francisco, and her work is held in the permanent collections of the Berkeley Art Museum, the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the San Jose Museum of Art, among others. She’s been awarded a number of artist residencies, including the Recology Artist in Residence Program at the San Francisco Recycling and Transfer Center, which we talk about in this episode. This episode is part of the Chrysalis Artists series. You can listen on Substack, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast platforms. Please rate, review, and share to help us spread the word! Kara Maria Kara Maria makes paintings and works on paper that reflect on Earth’s biodiversity crisis and the place of endangered species in our increasingly unstable environment. Borrowing from the broad vocabulary of contemporary painting, Maria blends geometric shapes, vivid hues, and abstract marks with representational elements. Her recent work features miniature portraits of disappearing animals, focusing attention on the alarming rate of extinction now being caused by human activity. Maria received her BA and MFA from the University of California, Berkeley. She has exhibited work in solo and group shows throughout the United States at venues including the de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara University, CA; the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, Sonoma, CA; the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV; the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX; and the Katonah Museum of Art in New York. Her work has received critical attention in the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Art in America. In addition, Maria has been selected for many awards and honors, including a grant from Artadia, New York, NY; an Eisner Prize in Art from UC Berkeley; and the Masterminds Grant from SF Weekly. She has been awarded artist residencies at the Montalvo Arts Center, Recology Artist in Residence Program, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, and at the de Young’s Artist Studio. Maria’s work appears in the permanent collections of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA); the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento; the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (Achenbach Foundation); the San Jose Museum of Art; and the Cantor Center at Stanford University; among others. Recommended Readings & Media Credits This episode was researched by Lydia Montgomery and edited by Sarah Westrich, with additional editing by Arthur Koenig and Marta Kondratiuk. Music is by Daniel Rodriguez Vivas. Mixing is by Morgan Honaker. If you enjoyed my conversation with Kara, please rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.chrysalispodcast.org

    48 min
  4. 15. Brian Teare — "Doomstead Days"

    09/23/2024

    15. Brian Teare — "Doomstead Days"

    Before I read Brian Teare’s poem, “Doomstead Days,” I had never heard of a doomstead. It’s a clever portmanteau, combining homestead with doomsday: an alternative universe where the homestead is a preparation for the climate apocalypse. The poem Brian weaves around his encounter with this word is a lyrical romp through our connection to land, water, and each other. Water flows, gender is fluid, and the rigid binaries of our imaginations dissolve. Brian’s exploration of the doomstead unearths some vital questions about ecological crisis. How do we respond? How are we, as a society, fleeing to our doomsteads and hiding, waiting for disaster, hoping to survive? What does it look like for us to leave our doomsteads, engage the problems directly, and find collective solutions? Brian Teare is the author of eight chapbooks and seven books of poetry, including, Doomstead Days, which won the Four Quartets Prize. He is the recipient of many awards and honors, including fellowships from Guggenheim, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Pew. He currently lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, and is an Associate Professor of Poetry at the University of Virginia. He’s also an editor and publisher and makes books by hand for his micropress, Albion Books. At over 1300 words, this poem is much longer than the others we’ve featured in our Poets series, but it’s worth it. This episode of Chrysalis is part of the Chrysalis Poets series. You can listen on Substack, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast platforms. You can listen on Substack, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast platforms. Brian Teare A 2020 Guggenheim Fellow, Brian Teare is the author of seven critically acclaimed books. His most recent publications are a diptych of book-length ekphrastic projects exploring queer abstraction, chronic illness, and collage: the 2022 Nightboat reissue of The Empty Form Goes All the Way to Heaven, and the fall 2023 publication of Poem Bitten by a Man, winner of the 2024 William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. After over a decade of teaching and writing in the San Francisco Bay Area, and eight years in Philadelphia, he’s now an Associate Professor of Poetry at the University of Virginia and lives in Charlottesville, where he makes books by hand for his micropress, Albion Books. Doomstead Days By Brian Teare today’s gender is rain it touches everything with its little silver epistemology mottled like a brook trout with a hundred spots white as bark scars on this slim trunk thrust up from one sidewalk square the four square feet of open ground given a street tree twiggy perimeter continually clipped by parking or car door or passing trash truck that snaps an actual branch I find haunting the little plot  its winged achenes auto-rotate down to it’s not that I don’t like a wide sidewalk or the 45 bus that grinds right by but if organisms didn’t insist on forms of resistance they’d be dead of anthropocentric technomechanical systems whose grids restrict the living through perpetual stress that elicits intense physical response like an animal panic hitting the psoas with cramps or root fungus sunk in the maple’s allotment of city property as tolerably wide  as the migraine that begins at the base of my skull & pinches with breadth calipers my temples until the feel of flay arrays the dura’s surface inside the bones inside the head the healer holds in her hands & says the occiput is shut flat & irks the nerves that thread through its unappeasable shunt into the spine I see a white light I keep thinking about the way long drought dries out topsoil so deep beneath its surface the first hard rain wreaks flood taking the good dirt with it the way today’s wet excess escapes its four square feet of exposed root & rivers out a flex of sediment alluvial over the civic cement of the anthropocene in currents a supple rippled velvet dun as Wissahickon creek in fall’s brief season of redd & spawn  when brook trout in chill quick shallows once dug into gravel to let nested eggs mix with milt & turn pearls translucent as raw unpolished quartz each white eyed ova flawed by a black fleck my eyes close over at the height of migraine fertile error waiting with incipient tail ready to propel it deeper into nausea until the healer halts its hatching & calms neuralgia between the heels of her hands pressing the occiput back open into the natural curve the bones forget the way the banks of the Wissahickon have forgotten rapids rinsing schist shaded by hemlock that kept the brook trout cold each patterned aspect of habitat lost first to dams & mills & industry runoff & plots of flax Germantown planted for paper & cloth made with water’s power & hauled out of the precipitous gorge up rough narrow roads south to the city port before adelgids took the crucial dark from under hemlocks sun heating the rocky creek down steep rills to the lower Schuylkill wide in its final miles dammed at Fairmount for two centuries of coal silt & dredge fabric dye & sewage that gave rise to typhus & refinery spills that gave rise to fire rinsed by this gender that remembers current’s circuit anadromous shad & striped bass leaving the Atlantic heading upriver shedding saltwater for fresh in runs whose numbers turned the green river silver if color counts as epistemology spring sun on the backs of a thousand shad is a form of knowing  local to another century & the duller color of ours is the way the word gender remembers it once meant to f**k beget or give birth sibling to generate & engender all fertile at the root & continuous as falling water molecules smoothing the sparkling gnarl of Wissahickon schist until its surface mirrors their force the fuel element & fundament alike derive thriving from being at its biggest when it’s kinetic energy headed toward intensity everything’s body connected by this  totally elastic materiality I feel as ecstatic wide dilation when the shut skull gives up resistance to the healer’s hands & the occiput opens its bones my mind’s eye goes okay I’m awake now rowdy with trout psoas relaxed my body’s a conduit it roars with water passing from past to present through pipes & riparian ecotones alike all of my fluids pollutants cycling back into my own watershed toxins & heavy metals bonded to blood stored in liver & fat C8 glyphosate mercury & lead it’s awkward okay I keep thinking about the man who asks me to visit his doomstead which seems kinky for a first date what’s the safeword for men with genders built for the world’s end men with weaponized genders hoarding solar power & canned goods bottled water genders tending small vegetable gardens out back behind the chickens concrete genders sealed in lead their doors secured from inside with thick steel bars fringe libertarian endtimes genders hetero girlie camo gun calendars apocalyptic tits pinned on brick walls by lone bunks so the men can cross out each day once civil society ends with a pathetic snivel like please help doomstead men live doomstead days already sealed in extreme fiction as if there were ever a way to stay safely self-contained by which I mean the anthropocene is its own gender biospheric in scale its persistent flux from fossil record to Antarctic ice core so uncontainable we all exhibit it with a local sense of personal chosen expression strategic or contingent like fertility medicalized tracked managed or casual happy f*****g without a condom risky given the odds    leveraged against us & the blameless microbes seeking homes in our nooks & tubes so I don’t visit his doomstead a psychic structure I feel in my head as blocked thought I watch play out in the Schuylkill where it pools wide shallow with silt above Fairmount dam I stand on the bank & know I’m not supposed to posit  an analogy between the river & my body but courtesy of this dam the city siphons its water into me another human intervention diverting its path each of my cells a little prison the river sits in  so we’re related on a molecular level so intimate I think I can say it wants speed & movement free enough to jump the strained relation to human needs it serves without relief without the hands that hold my bones & tend my fascia that remember a different posture without blockage or pain a model for undoing harm done by capital empowered to frack during record drought millions of gallons of toxic wastewater injected into earth or kept in open ponds prone & porous in western counties where river otters have rebounded after last being spotted in the Allegheny in 1899 otters are raucous & chirp chitter chuckle & grumble when wrestling together or sliding on ice playful biophony rivers have missed for a whole century like brook trout rooting in loose cool gravel or the plash of insects fallen from hemlocks the intact eastern riverine biome one serious mess of sound enmeshed in sound enmeshed in biotic patterns as heavy as traffic when the weekend weather is nice & I ride the early 27 bus to the Wissahickon it’s not that I don’t like the city it’s just if biodiversity is a measure of health a city is by definition sick with people & built structures crowding out other lives though I love signs species persist this sidewalk moss probably bryum argentum native to guano-covered seabird rookeries this fertile gingko stinking up the street with stone fruits crushed underfoot this nameless fern in a downpipe drain so modest in scale like the simple songs of house sparrows everywhere though  this chubby one is hustling a fallen everything bagel of se

    1h 25m
  5. 14. Layel Camargo — Queer Ecology, Indigenous Stewardship, and the Power of Laughter

    09/16/2024

    14. Layel Camargo — Queer Ecology, Indigenous Stewardship, and the Power of Laughter

    What is our relationship to the land, to its other-than-human inhabitants, and to the rest of humanity? These are fundamental questions for thinking through how we can transform ourselves in ways that allow a multiplicity of ecologies and human communities to thrive alongside one another. And these questions are not just fundamental to us as individuals—they are essential to how we view our cultures, traditions, institutions, and ways of knowing. Layel Camargo lives at the vibrant intersection of ecological justice, queer liberation, and indigenous culture—a cultural space that offers a distinctive vantage point on how our societies work, while holding enormous potential to both see and reorient our relationships to the land and to one another. Layel Camargo is an organizer and artist who advocates for the better health of the planet and its people by restoring land, healing communities, and promoting low-waste and low-impact lifestyles. Layel is a transgender and gender non-conforming person who is an indigenous descendant of the Yaqui and Mayo tribes of the Sonoran Desert. I met Layel at a climate storytelling retreat in New York City in 2019, where I became a huge fan of their work and of their way of being in the world. Layel is a founder of the Shelterwood Collective, a Black, Indigenous, and LGBTQ-led community forest and retreat center, healing people and ecosystems through active stewardship and community engagement. Our conversation explores the idea of culture as strategy in confronting the climate crisis, diving into Layel’s work in video, podcasting, and poetry and the origins of their approach to this work of healing people and planet. You can listen on Substack, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast platforms. Please rate, review, and share to help us spread the word! Layel Camargo Layel Camargo is a cultural strategist, land steward, filmmaker, artist, and a descendant of the Yaqui tribe and Mayo tribes of the Sonoran Desert. Layel is also transgender and non-binary. They graduated from UC Santa Cruz with dual degrees in Feminist Studies and Legal Studies. Layel was the Impact Producer for “The North Pole Show” Season Two. They currently produce and host ‘Did We Go Too Far’ in conjunction with Movement Generation. Alongside Favianna Rodriguez and at the Center for Cultural Power, they created ‘Climate Woke,’ a national campaign to center BIPOC voices in climate justice. Wanting to shape a new world, they co-founded ‘Shelterwood Collective’. The collective is a land-based organization that teaches land stewardship, fosters inventive ideation, and encourages healing for long-term survival. Layel was a Transformative Justice practitioner for 6 years and still looks to achieve change to the carceral system in all of their work. Most recently, Layel was named on the Grist 2020 Fixers List, and named in the 2019 Yerba Buena Center of the Arts list of ‘People to Watch Out For.’ Quotation Read by Layel Camargo “You wanna fly, you got to give up the s**t that weighs you down.” - Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon Recommended Readings & Media Transcript Intro John Fiege   What is our relationship to the land, to its other-than-human inhabitants, and to the rest of humanity? These are fundamental questions for thinking through how we can transform ourselves in ways that allow a multiplicity of ecologies and human communities to thrive alongside one another. And these questions are not just fundamental to us as individuals—they are essential to how we view our cultures, traditions, institutions, and ways of knowing. Layel Camargo lives at the vibrant intersection of ecological justice, queer liberation, and indigenous culture—a cultural space that offers a distinctive vantage point on how our societies work while holding enormous potential to both see and reorient our relationships to the land and to one another. And besides that, Layel is hilarious. Layel Camargo  My passion for humor has come from has been maintained by a lot of data and information that I've gotten around just the importance of people being able to process things through laughter. And that the climate crisis is nothing to make mockery and or to laugh, there's this is very serious. The ways in which our species is kind of being at threat of extinction, and right before our eyes. But I think that as humans, we're so complex and layered, and we're so beautiful in the sense that we get to feel so intensely, and feeling is what motivates us to take action. And laughter helps you process so much data quicker, it helps you be able to take something in, embrace it, release, and then have it make an impression. John Fiege   I’m John Fiege, and this is Chrysalis. Layel Camargo is an organizer and artist who advocates for the better health of the planet and its people by restoring land, healing communities, and promoting low-waste, low-impact lifestyles. Layel is a transgender and gender non-conforming person who is an indigenous descendant of the Yaqui and Mayo tribes of the Sonoran Desert. I met Layel at a climate storytelling retreat in New York City in 2019, where I became a huge fan of their work and of their way of being in the world. Layel is a founder of the Shelterwood Collective, a Black, Indigenous, and LGBTQ-led community forest and retreat center, healing people and ecosystems through active stewardship and community engagement. Our conversation explores the idea of culture as strategy in confronting the climate crisis, diving into Layel’s work in video, podcasting, and poetry and the origins of their approach to this work of healing people and planet. Here is Layel Camargo. Conversation John Fiege How you doing? Layel Camargo  I'm doing pretty good. How are you doing? John Fiege  I'm doing well. I've got this thing in my throat. I, so I'm going to be drinking a lot of tea. And I might have to have a bathroom break. Know, I have forgotten to take my allergy medicine. And here we are. Great. Yeah. So can you start out by telling me where you grew up? And how you viewed your relationship to the rest of nature when you were a kid? Layel Camargo  Yeah. Um, I can start off by Yeah. talking a little bit about where I grew up. Yeah, so I grew up on the Mexican border between Tijuana and San Diego. And my upbringing was in this very highly dense migrant community from Latinx to Philippines, because of the proximity to the military base. It was very military towns, pretty much the professions. They're like you're either work for Homeland Security, the military or police. And I didn't really notice what my upbringing was like till I left. But I grew up crossing the border back and forth. My grandmother migrated from the Sonoran Desert, to Tijuana. And that's basically where my mother was born. And she grew. She went to high school in San Diego, which is why I can say I'm an American citizen, but I'm a descendant of the Maya or the uremic tribes, my grandmother said, and then my grandfather said, The yucky tribes of the Sonoran Desert so I think for me, my connection ecologically was like the ocean Because I grew up in a beach city, and then it was also the desert, because of all the stories and my grandmother's connection to sanada. So high, I never felt like I was at home because as a queer person paid never really fit into the conservative nature of San Diego due to how militarized it is, and all this stuff. But it was through a drive, which I took from Northern California, down to Sonora, where my grandmother's family lives, when I drove through the saguaros and Arizona that I remember seeing the Saguaro forests and just like needing to pull over and just like, take them in. And I had this a visceral feeling that I don't think I've ever had before of just like being home. And I think this, this experience was like in 2016 2017. And that's when I realized that, in theory, I was a climate activist, I cared about the planet. But it wasn't until that moment that I was like, oh, what I'm actually doing is like actually fighting for us to return to be in better relationship with the planet. And this is where I belong, this is my source of my route, these trees and this desert. So because of that, and growing up in proximity to the beach, water conservation has always been an area of like passion for me and caring about the ocean, which pushed me to a practice of lowering my plastic consumption and being more mindful of oil consumption. And the desert has always been a source of like grounding in regards to like place and knowing that I come from the earth. So it's kind of like I was gonna say, it's kind of like, I'm from a lot of places, I moved to Northern California in 2006. So I love the forest. But nothing speaks to my heart, like the beach in the desert. John Fiege  Well, they have sand in common. Is there? Is there a tension between the ocean pulling you in the desert pulling you or is it? Is it a beautiful harmony? Layel Camargo  It's a bit of a tension. But I would say that in my body, it feels the same. They both dehydrate me and over, over like it's just a lot of heat, typically. So yeah, that it's different for Northern California beaches, because they're a little bit more Rocky and more cold. You have to wear more layers. Right? definitely like to where I grew up, it's it is warm, the sandy ness. That's a great connection, I definitely need to make that a little bit more concrete. Totally John Fiege  cool. Well, can you tell me more about the path you took from the neighborhood where you grew up in San Diego, to studying at UC Santa Cruz and what that experience was like for you? Layel Camargo  Yeah, I, I went. So I grew up in a home where there was a lot of violence, which is very common in a lot of migrant-specific and indigenous communities. And I kind of came into my teenage years, like really realizing that I was different, but I didn't know how when it kind of got summarized in colle

    1h 27m
  6. 13. Forrest Gander — "Forest"

    05/06/2024

    13. Forrest Gander — "Forest"

    Lichen is a strange presence on this planet. Traditionally, scientists have understood lichen as a new organism formed through symbiosis between a fungus and an algae. But the science is evolving. It seems that there may be more than one species of fungus involved in this symbiosis, and some scientists have suggested that lichen could be described as both an ecosystem and an organism. Lichen may even be immortal, in some sense of the word. In lichen, the poet Forrest Gander finds both the mystery of the forest and a rich metaphor for our symbiosis with one another and with the planet, for the relationship between the dead and the living, and for how our relationships with others change us indelibly. In his poem, “Forest,” lichen are a sensual presence, even erotic, living in relationship to the other beings around them. They resemble us, strangely, despite our dramatic differences. The words of the poem teem with life, like the forest they explore, and Forrest’s marvelous reading of the poem adds a panoply of meanings and feelings through his annunciation, his breaths, his breaks. It’s phenomenal. This poem, and his work more broadly, is about nothing less that who we are on this Earth and how we live—how we thrive—in relationship. Forrest Gander writes poetry, novels, essays, and translations. He is the recipient of many awards and honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his book, Be With. As an undergraduate, like me, he studied geology, which became foundational to his engagement with ecological ethics and poetics. Forrest often collaborates with other artists on books and exhibitions, including a project with the photographer Sally Mann. His latest book of poetry is a collaboration with the photographer Jack Shear, called Knot (spelled with a “k”). He recently collaborated with artist Ashwini Bhat on an exhibition at the Shoshana Wayne Gallery in Los Angeles, called “In Your Arms I’m Radiant.” His poem, “Forest,” is from his 2021 collection of poems, Twice Alive. Forrest has taught at Harvard University and Brown University. He spoke to me from his home in Northern California, where he now lives. This episode of Chrysalis is part of the Chrysalis Poets series, which focuses on a single poems from poets who confront ecological issues in their work. You can listen on Substack, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast platforms. Please rate, review, and share to help us spread the word! Forrest Gander Born in the Mojave Desert in Barstow, California, Forrest Gander grew up in Virginia. He spend significant years in San Francisco, Dolores Hidalgo (Mexico), Eureka Springs, and Providence. With the late poet CD Wright, he has a son, the artist Brecht Wright Gander. Forrest holds degrees in both Geology and English literature. He lives now in Northern California with his wife, the artist Ashwini Bhat. Gander's book Be With was awarded the 2019 Pulitzer Prize. Concerned with the way we are revised and translated in encounters with the foreign, his book Core Samples from the World was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Gander has collaborated frequently with other artists including photographers Sally Mann, Graciela Iturbide, Raymond Meeks, and Lucas Foglia, glass artist Michael Rogers, ceramic artists Rick Hirsch and Ashwini Bhat, artists Ann Hamilton, Tjibbe Hooghiemstra, dancers Eiko & Koma, and musicians Vic Chesnutt and Brady Earnhart, among others.   The author of numerous other books of poetry, including Redstart: An Ecological Poetics and Science & Steepleflower, Gander also writes novels (As a Friend; The Trace), essays (A Faithful Existence) and translates. Recent translations include It Must Be a Misunderstanding by Coral Bracho, Names and Rivers by Shuri Kido, and Then Come Back: the Lost Neruda Poems. His most recent anthologies are Pinholes in the Night: Essential Poems from Latin American (selected by Raúl Zurita) and Panic Cure: Poems from Spain for the 21st Century. Gander's books have been translated and published in more than a dozen other languages. He is a United States Artists Rockefeller Fellow and has received fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim, Whiting, and Howard Foundations. In 2011, he was awarded the Library of Congress Witter Bynner Fellowship. Gander was the Briggs-Copeland poet at Harvard University before becoming The Adele Kellenberg Seaver Professor of Literary Arts and Comparative Literature at Brown University where he taught courses such as Poetry & Ethics, EcoPoetics, Latin American Death Trip, and Translation Theory & Practice. He is an Emeritus Chancellor for the Academy for the Academy of American Poets and is an elected member of The Academy of Arts & Sciences. Gander co-edited Lost Roads Publishers with CD Wright for twenty years, soliciting, editing, and publishing books by more than thirty writers, including Michael Harper, Kamau Brathwaite, Arthur Sze, Fanny Howe, Frances Mayes, Steve Stern, Zuleyka Benitez, and René Char. “Forest” By Forrest Gander Erogenous zones in oaks slung with stoles of lace lichen the sun’s rays spilling through leaves in broken packets a force call it nighttime thrusts mushrooms up from their lair of spawn mycelial loam the whiff of port they pop into un- trammeled air with the sort of gasp that follows a fine chess move like memories are they? or punctuation? was it something the earth said to provoke our response tasking us to recall an evolutionary course our long ago initation into the one- among-others and within my newborn noticing have you popped up beside me love or were you here from the start a swarm of meaning and decay still gripping the underworld both of us half-buried holding fast if briefly to a swelling vastness while our coupling begins to register in the already awake compendium that offers to take us in you take me in and abundance floods us floats us out we fill each with the other all morning breaks as birdsong over us who rise to the surface so our faces might be sprung Recommended Readings & Media Forrest Gander reading his poem “Unto Ourselves” from Twice Alive. Transcript Intro John Fiege Lichen is a strange presence on this planet. Traditionally, scientists have understood lichen as a new organism formed through symbiosis between a fungus and an algae. But the science is evolving. It seems there may be more than one species of fungus involved in this symbiosis. And some scientists have suggested that lichen, and could be described as both an ecosystem and an organism. Lichen may even be immortal in some sense of the word. In lichen, the poet Forrest Gander finds both the mystery of the forest and a rich metaphor for our symbiosis with one another and with the planet, for the relationship between the dead and the living, and for how our relationships with others change us indelibly. In his poem, "Forest," lichen are an essential presence, even erotic, living in relationship to the other beings around them. They resemble us strangely, despite our dramatic differences. The words of the poem teem with life, like the forest they explore, and Forrest's marvelous reading of the poem as a panoply of meanings and feelings through his enunciation—his breaths, his breaks; it's phenomenal. This poem in his work, more broadly, is about nothing less than who we are on this earth, and how we live; how we thrive in relationship. I'm John Fiege, and this episode of Chrysalis is part of the Chrysalis Poets series. Forrest Gander writes poetry, novels, essays, and translations. He is the recipient of many awards and honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his book Be With. Forrest often collaborates with other artists on books and exhibitions, including a project with a photographer Sally Mann. His latest book of poetry is a collaboration with a photographer Jack Scheer called Knot. He recently collaborated with artist Ashwini Bhat on an exhibition at the Shoshana Wayne Gallery in Los Angeles, called In Your Arms I'm Radiant. His poem, "Forest," is from his 2021 collection of poems, Twice Alive. Forrest has taught at Harvard University and Brown University. He spoke to me from his home in Northern California, where he now lives. Here is Forrest Gander reading his poem "Forest." Poem Forrest Gander “Forest” Erogenous zones in oaks slung with stoles of lace lichen the sun’s rays spilling through leaves in broken packets a force call it nighttime thrusts mushrooms up from their lair of spawn mycelial loam the whiff of port they pop into un- trammeled air with the sort of gasp that follows a fine chess move like memories are they? or punctuation? was it something the earth said to provoke our response tasking us to recall an evolutionary course our long ago initation into the one- among-others and within my newborn noticing have you popped up beside me love or were you here from the start a swarm of meaning and decay still gripping the underworld both of us half-buried holding fast if briefly to a swelling vastness while our coupling begins to register in the already awake compendium that offers to take us in you take me in and abundance floods us floats us out we fill each with the other all morning breaks as birdsong over us who rise to the surface so our faces might be sprung Conversation John Fiege Thank you. It's so wonderful hearing you read it, the intonation and the flow of the words and your emphasis is just like completely new hearing you read it, rather than just reading it myself. I want to start with the sexual imagery. You begin with "erogenous zones in oaks, slung with stoles of lace lichen." And that l

    38 min
  7. 12. Dave Cortez — The Education of a Chicano Climate Warrior

    04/29/2024

    12. Dave Cortez — The Education of a Chicano Climate Warrior

    Our love for the world around us and our passion for protecting that world can come from many different places. It can come from a connection to the land, or a magical experience we had with other people in a particular place, or our sense of awe from the beauty of the living creatures that inhabit these ecosystems. But that love and passion can also come from seeing or experiencing the destruction of the same ecological web, from pollution in the air that rains down onto a playground, or the clearing of a wildlife habitat to make way for a fossil fuel pipeline. Dave Cortez has been organizing for environmental justice in Texas for the better part of two decades. He lives in Austin now, but the love and passion that guides him came from the Rio Grande, the Sierra Madre Mountains and the high desert of West Texas. And from fighting a copper smelter and other threats to the land, air and water in and around his native El Paso. Dave has a fierce love for his El Paso Community. But cutting his teeth as an environmental justice organizer in his hometown wasn't easy.  Dave is now Director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, where he’s bringing his El Paso roots and years of experience on the streets and in the communities around Texas to the Sierra Club’s statewide campaigns. I’ve known Dave for many years and used to regularly attend environmental justice meetings in Austin that he helped organize. I’ve seen him rise from an on-the-ground organizer to the leader of the Texas chapter of one of the oldest and largest environmental organizations in the world. Our conversation tracks his education as an environmental justice organizer. From the playgrounds of El Paso to the gentrifying neighborhoods of Austin, his story reflects the changing nature of the American environmental movement and the exciting possibilities of more robust connections between community-based frontline environmental justice struggles and the large and powerful environmental organizations with nationwide influence. You can listen on Substack, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast platforms. Please rate, review, and share to help us spread the word! Dave Cortez Dave Cortez is a 3rd generation El Pasoan now based out of Austin where he lives with his partner and six year old daughter. He grew up and learned organizing on the frontera, where industrial pollution, poverty, gentrification, racism and the border wall are seen as intersecting issues. Dave serves as the Director of the Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter, and has been organizing in the Texas environmental movement for 18 years. Dave is supporting staff and volunteers across Texas who are organizing for power by centering racial justice and equity alongside frontline communities directly impacted by polluting industries. Quotation Read by Dave Cortez "There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives. Malcolm knew this. Martin Luther King, Jr. knew this. Our struggles are particular, but we are not alone. We are not perfect, but we are stronger and wiser than the sum of our errors. Black people have been here before us and survived. We can read their lives like signposts on the road and find, as Bernice Reagon says so poignantly, that each one of us is here because somebody before us did something to make it possible. To learn from their mistakes is not to lessen our debt to them, nor to the hard work of becoming ourselves, and effective. We lose our history so easily, what is not predigested for us by the New York Times, or the Amsterdam News, or Time magazine. Maybe because we do not listen to our poets or to our fools, maybe because we do not listen to our mamas in ourselves. When I hear the deepest truths I speak coming out of my mouth sounding like my mother’s, even remembering how I fought against her, I have to reassess both our relationship as well as the sources of my knowing. Which is not to say that I have to romanticize my mother in order to appreciate what she gave me – Woman, Black. We do not have to romanticize our past in order to be aware of how it seeds our present. We do not have to suffer the waste of an amnesia that robs us of the lessons of the past rather than permit us to read them with pride as well as deep understanding. We know what it is to be lied to, and we know how important it is not to lie to ourselves. We are powerful because we have survived, and that is what it is all about – survival and growth. Within each one of us there is some piece of humanness that knows we are not being served by the machine which orchestrates crisis after crisis and is grinding all our futures into dust. If we are to keep the enormity of the forces aligned against us from establishing a false hierarchy of oppression, we must school ourselves to recognize that any attack against Blacks, any attack against women, is an attack against all of us who recognize that our interests are not being served by the systems we support. Each one of us here is a link in the connection between anti-poor legislation, gay shootings, the burning of synagogues, street harassment, attacks against women, and resurgent violence against Black people. I ask myself as well as each one of you, exactly what alteration in the particular fabric of my everyday life does this connection call for? Survival is not a theory. In what way do I contribute to the subjugation of any part of those who I define as my people? Insight must illuminate the particulars of our lives." - Audre Lorde Recommended Readings & Media Transcript Intro John Fiege   Our love for the world around us and our passion for protecting that world can come from many different places. It can come from a connection to the land, or a magical experience we had with other people in a particular place, or our sense of awe from the beauty of the living creatures that inhabit these ecosystems. But that love and passion can also come from seeing or experiencing the destruction of this same ecological web: from pollution in the air that rains down onto a playground or the clearing of wildlife habitat to make way for a fossil fuel pipeline. Dave Cortez has been organizing for environmental justice in Texas for the better part of two decades. He lives in Austin now, but the love and passion that guides him came from the Rio Grande, the Sierra Madre mountains, and the high desert of West Texas—and it came from fighting a copper smelter and other threats to the land, air, and water in and around his native El Paso. Dave has a fierce love for his El Paso community but cutting his teeth as an environmental justice organizer in his home town wasn’t easy. Dave Cortez   Two of my close family members worked at the plant. My dad's brother worked at the plant and then worked at Chevron on the other side of town. And then his brother in law, worked at the plant and retired. And here I was, this younger punk, you know, sort of just not super close to the family, showing up at events and they asked what I'm doing and, oh, they think I'm a paid protester, you know, forget my education, forget what's at what I'm actually saying. You know, it's, deep cultural assimilation. It's deep colonization, sort of this Stockholm syndrome that develops out of poverty and repression. It's horrific, and it's sad to watch. People fiercely defend the only thing that has helped them in their eyes and not be able to acknowledge the harm that's been done. It's not different from, you know, addiction in that way, or depression. John Fiege   Or domestic abuse.  Dave Cortez   Exactly. It's heartbreaking. It still hurts me to talk about.  John Fiege   I’m John Fiege, and this is Chrysalis. Dave Cortez is now Director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, where he’s bringing his El Paso roots and years of experience on the streets and in the communities around Texas to the Sierra Club’s statewide campaigns. I’ve known Dave for many years and used to regularly attend environmental justice meetings in Austin that he helped organize. I’ve seen him rise from an on-the-ground organizer to the leader of the Texas chapter of one of the oldest and largest environmental organizations in the world. Our conversation tracks his education as an environmental justice organizer. From the playgrounds of El Paso to the gentrifying neighborhoods of Austin, his story reflects the changing nature of the American environmental movement and the exciting possibilities of more robust connections between community-based frontline environmental justice struggles and the large and powerful environmental organizations with nationwide influence. Here is Dave Cortez. Conversation John Fiege Well, you grew up in El Paso in Far West Texas, and it's right on the border of Mexico and New Mexico. Can you tell me a bit about growing up there, and your family and how you saw yourself in relationship to the rest of nature. Dave Cortez   I've got a little picture I'm looking at my my very first demonstration. It's a bunch of kids, kids meaning college kids, my my age at the time, about maybe 22, 23, and a big peace flag and we're hanging around what was called Plaza de Los Lagartos, Plaza of the Alligators. And we're there I think we're protesting, must have been continuing invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, but you know, I keep it up. And I keep pictures of the mountains of West Texas, the edge of the Rockies is what cuts into the central central part of El Paso, the Franklin Mountains. And then you have the Rio Grande, the heart and soul of that land. And on the other side of the river, those mountains continue into the Sierra Madres all the way down to the coast. It's majestic. It's, you know, that land is as colonized as is its people. You know, it's been, the river has been dammed up upstream in New Mexico, and two reservoirs to provide water for agriculture and farming and things like that, recreation. It was the only area of wa

    1h 36m
  8. 11. Elizabeth Bradfield — “Plastic: A Personal History”

    04/22/2024

    11. Elizabeth Bradfield — “Plastic: A Personal History”

    When we’re gone from this Earth, what will we leave behind? What will we pass down to those who come after us? Plastic. If nothing else, lots of plastic. A plastic bag might take 20 years to break down, but harder, thicker plastics, like toothbrushes, might take 500 years or more to break down. Elizabeth Bradfield is a poet and naturalist who sees first hand, in her work as a marine educator, the ravaging impacts of plastic on marine life. But she also confronts plastic and our collective addiction to it as a subject of poetry. Her poem, “Plastic: A Personal History,” is what she calls a “cranky naturalist” poem, which is pretty funny, but embedded in the humor are big questions: how has plastic become part of who we are as individuals and as a species? Now that we know the dangers and devastating effects of plastic production and disposal, how must we change our relationship to this petrochemical product? What kind of world are we making, and what alternatives do we have? Elizabeth Bradfield is the author of five collections of poetry, including, most recently, Toward Antarctica. She co-edited the newly-released anthology, Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, The Sun, and Orion, and her honors include the Audre Lorde Prize and a Stegner Fellowship. She teaches creative writing at Brandeis University and is founder and editor-in-chief of Broadsided Press. She lives on Cape Cod, where she also works as a naturalist and marine educator. This episode of Chrysalis is part of the Chrysalis Poets series. You can listen on Substack, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast platforms. Please rate, review, and share to help us spread the word! Elizabeth Bradfield Born in Tacoma, Washington, Elizabeth Bradfield is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently Toward Antarctica, which uses haibun and her photographs to query the work of guiding tourists in Antarctica, and Theorem, a collaboration with artist Antonia Contro. Bradfield is also co-editor of the anthologies Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry, and Broadsided Press: Fifteen Years of Poetic/Artistic Collaboration, 2005-2020. A professor and co-director of Creative Writing at Brandeis University, Bradfield has received a great deal of recognition through awards and fellowships. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, The Sun, Orion, and her honors include the Audre Lorde Prize and a Stegner Fellowship.  Based on Cape Cod, Liz also works as a naturalist, adding an engaging and proactive component to back up the prowess of her evocative literature. She also is the founder and editor-in-chief of Broadsided Press, a journal and grass-roots initiative that, through monthly publications, aims to expose the broader community (beyond academia) to relevant literature and art. “Plastic: A Personal History” By Elizabeth Bradfield How can I find a way to praise it? Do the early inventors & embracers churn with regret? I don’t think my parents —born in the swing toward ubiquity—chew & chew & chew on plastic. But of course they do. Bits in water, food-flesh, air. And their parents? I remember Dad mocking his mother’s drawer of saved rubber bands and his father-in-law’s red, corroded jerry can, patched and patched, never replaced for new, for never- rusting. Cash or plastic? Plastic. Even for gum. We hate the $5 minimum. Bills paperless, automatic, almost unreal. My toys were plastic, castle and circus train and yo-yo. Did my lunches ever get wrapped in waxed paper or was it all Saran, Saran, Saran? Sarah’s mom was given, in Girl Scouts, a blue sheet of plastic to cut, sew, and trim with white piping into pouches for camping. Sarah has it still, brittle but useful. Merit badge for waterproofing. For everlasting. You, too, must have heard stories, now quaint as carriages, of first plastic, pre-plastic. Eras of glass, waxed cloth, and tin. Of shared syringes. All our grocery bags, growing up, were paper. Bottom hefted on forearm, top crunched into grab. We used them to line the kitchen garbage pail. Not that long ago, maybe a decade, I made purses for my sisters out of putty-colored, red-lettered plastic Safeway bags. I’d snag a stack each time I went, then fold and sew, quilt with bright thread, line with thrift store blouses. They were sturdy and beautiful. Rainproof and light. Clever. So clever. I regret them. And the plastic toothpicks, folders, shoes that seemed so cheap, so easy, so use-again and thus less wasteful, then. What did we do before to-go lids? Things must have just spilled and spilled. Do you know what I mean? I mean, what pearl forms around a grain of plastic in an oyster? Is it as beautiful? Would you wear it? Would you buy it for your daughter so she in turn could pass it down and pass it down and pass it down? Recommended Readings & Media Transcript Intro John Fiege When we’re gone from this Earth, what will we leave behind? What will we pass down to those who come after us? Plastic. If nothing else, lots of plastic. A plastic bag might take 20 years to break down, but harder, thicker plastics, like toothbrushes, might take 500 years or more to break down. Elizabeth Bradfield is a poet and naturalist who sees first hand, in her work as a marine educator, the ravaging impacts of plastic on marine life. But she also confronts plastic and our collective addiction to it as a subject of poetry. Her poem, “Plastic: A Personal History,” is what she calls a “cranky naturalist” poem, which is pretty funny, but embedded in the humor are big questions: how has plastic become part of who we are as individuals and as a species? Now that we know the dangers and devastating effects of plastic production and disposal, how must we change our relationship to this petrochemical product? What kind of world are we making, and what alternatives do we have? I’m John Fiege, and this episode of Chrysalis is part of the Chrysalis Poets series. Elizabeth Bradfield is the author of five collections of poetry, including, most recently, Toward Antarctica. She co-edited the newly-released anthology, Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, The Sun, and Orion, and her honors include the Audre Lorde Prize and a Stegner Fellowship. She teaches creative writing at Brandeis University and is founder and editor-in-chief of Broadsided Press. She lives on Cape Cod, where she also works as a naturalist and marine educator. Here is Elizabeth Bradfield reading her poem, “Plastic: A Personal History.” --- Poem Elizabeth Bradfield   “Plastic: A Personal History” How can I find a way to praise it? Do the early inventors & embracers churn with regret? I don’t think my parents —born in the swing toward ubiquity—chew & chew & chew on plastic. But of course they do. Bits in water, food-flesh, air. And their parents? I remember Dad mocking his mother’s drawer of saved rubber bands and his father-in-law’s red, corroded jerry can, patched and patched, never replaced for new, for never- rusting. Cash or plastic? Plastic. Even for gum. We hate the $5 minimum. Bills paperless, automatic, almost unreal. My toys were plastic, castle and circus train and yo-yo. Did my lunches ever get wrapped in waxed paper or was it all Saran, Saran, Saran? Sarah’s mom was given, in Girl Scouts, a blue sheet of plastic to cut, sew, and trim with white piping into pouches for camping. Sarah has it still, brittle but useful. Merit badge for waterproofing. For everlasting. You, too, must have heard stories, now quaint as carriages, of first plastic, pre-plastic. Eras of glass, waxed cloth, and tin. Of shared syringes. All our grocery bags, growing up, were paper. Bottom hefted on forearm, top crunched into grab. We used them to line the kitchen garbage pail. Not that long ago, maybe a decade, I made purses for my sisters out of putty-colored, red-lettered plastic Safeway bags. I’d snag a stack each time I went, then fold and sew, quilt with bright thread, line with thrift store blouses. They were sturdy and beautiful. Rainproof and light. Clever. So clever. I regret them. And the plastic toothpicks, folders, shoes that seemed so cheap, so easy, so use-again and thus less wasteful, then. What did we do before to-go lids? Things must have just spilled and spilled. Do you know what I mean? I mean, what pearl forms around a grain of plastic in an oyster? Is it as beautiful? Would you wear it? Would you buy it for your daughter so she in turn could pass it down and pass it down and pass it down? --- Conversation John Fiege   Thank you, that's so beautiful. And there's so much going on there, in this poem. Elizabeth Bradfield   It's funny it started, this poem started kind of just, you know, as a bitter rant. John Fiege   Well, it didn't end there. Elizabeth Bradfield   No, it didn't end there. John Fiege   So, tell me about that. What's the bitter rant? Elizabeth Bradfield   Oh, just plastic. You know? Honestly, the poem started when my friend Sarah, you know, she's my age. I'm 50, 51. And she showed me this little bag her mom made and I started thinking, "Wow, imagine being the generation that discovered plastic, right? Wow, plastic, so handy," tupperware parties, all that stuff, right? And I mean, to be the generation that saw plastic come into use, I was just really thinking about that shift and, and that's where the poem started. John Fiege

    37 min

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About

The climate crisis is a piercing call for us all to change—profoundly and quickly. And it’s not enough to just focus on changing our own habits—we must figure out how to collectively steer the ship of humanity in a completely different direction. The path we’re on now brought us to this moment of climate chaos, mass extinction, and environmental injustice, and we’re definitely not turning the ship fast enough. Hosted by John Fiege, the Chrysalis podcast features’s in-depth conversations with a remarkable group of environmental thinkers about their paths through life and the transformations they’ve experienced along the way. Our guests are great writers, artists, activists, scientists, and spiritual leaders whose stories can help guide us into new ways of relating to our environment, our planet, and the rest of life on Earth. We’re not searching for simple answers or magical solutions. Rather, we are on a quest for ecological wisdom and compassion. On Chrysalis, we embrace complexity and question dogma—in robust dialogue with one another that lights up connections and sparks our imaginations. We need culture change, not climate change, and that transformation starts with the stories we tell each other and tell ourselves. Join us at ChrysalisPodcast.org! www.chrysalispodcast.org

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