The Politics of Nature and Environmental Writing

This book defines nature writing as the creative practice of tracing the bodily and sensory enjoyment of nature—in the broad sense of the processes and places of land, air, and water—in prose poetry and poetic prose. In so doing, it celebrates the creative practice of selected nature and environmental writing, as well as related cultural critique. Giblett draws on the work of Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, and Mikhail Bakhtin to establish what nature writing is and on Michel Foucault to distinguish what it is not. He discusses Aboriginal storytelling as well as the work of "classic" nature writers, including Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, and John Muir. He also considers writing on environmental conservation and politics, as well as "the new nature writing" found in the work of authors such as Richard Mabey, Robert Macfarlane, Caroline Crampton, and Rachel Lichenstein. Through all of this contemplation, the book invites readers to love their local places, plants, and animals through creative practice.