On Affect and Ecopoetics

In this article, I aim to contribute to the discussion on the convergence between affect studies and ecocriticism, especially in its new materialist strands, by focusing on their applicability to the study of poetry. Drawing on Jane Bennett, I set out to explore the potential of poetry to imagine and attend to the worlds beyond the anthropocentric, as well as to engender attentiveness to the nonhuman as theorized in new materialisms. I contend that Bennett’s theorization of affect, vibrant matter, and her model of influx-and-efflux, can be fruitfully thought of in connection to what writer and scholar Julia Fiedorczuk conceptualizes as ecopoetics. In particular, and addressing Fiedorczuk’s ecocriticism and poetic practice, this paper will understand ecopoetics as a means of inducing “an aesthetic-affective openness to material vitality” (Bennett, 2010: x), and it will raise questions about how to write an I in a world of vibrant matter.