Investigating the biosphere as a ‘hyperobject’ through contemporary poetry practice, reading and writing.

Research team

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Caleb Parkin – University of Exeter

John Wedgwood Clarke – University of Exeter

Regan Early – University of Exeter

Eurasian Jay – Europe

Aims 

This is a practice-based poetry PhD and thus, involves an interplay of creative writing and practice, alongside critical reading and writing. Aligning with RENEW’s people-in-nature approach, Caleb has been spending time considering the biodiversity around him in a local cemetery, where jays have made a particular impression. His work will also explore empirical understandings of non-human subjectivities and how speculative ecopoetry might interface with these ways of knowing.  

Approach

This creative work investigates: 

• The (im)possibilities of human-animal communication and nonhuman-animal voices in poetry  
• The idea of ‘haunted nature‘, through different creative-critical lenses 
• Timothy Morton’s ‘hyperobjects’, as articulated through three strands of writing under the headings of, ‘Hither’ (here), ‘Thither’ (there), and ‘Yonder’ (elsewhere)

○ ‘Hither’ is localised work, thinking-with Eurasian jays in a local cemetery

○ ‘Thither’ will be field poetry, written on an expedition to Yukon and Alaska and inspired by conversation with First Nations people around nonhuman spirit and human – nonhuman communication

○ ‘Yonder’ is a schlocky science-fiction narrative, inspired in part by Frankenstein (as well as Little Shop of Horrors and various others). 

These three strands evolve and will then ‘collapse’ into each other through editing and fictionalisation – enacting the uncanniness Morton articulates as a feature of ‘art in the time of hyperobjects’. 

Critical work explores: 

• Queer ecopoetry – specifically what Caleb is calling ‘drag voice’, in articulating animal subjectivities 
• The ecogothic, through ‘cruising for’ and being ‘haunted by’ Eurasian jays in a local graveyard 
• The ‘edges of empiricism’ in relation to speculative ecopoetry – with aspects of ‘re-enchantment’, in dialogue with RENEW colleagues working in ecology and the biological sciences.
  

While the poetry aspect of Caleb’s work is necessarily solitary, it is inspired by conversations within and beyond the RENEW network.