Destabilising the Anthropocene in Voice, Listening and Poetic Potential: Ecoacoustics in Forrest Gander’s Twice Alive

Author: Bek King

Affiliation: Newcastle University

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Abstract:​

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This essay explores the ecoacoustical potential of poetry through a close analysis of Forrest Gander’s Twice Alive (2021). It considers the ability of ecopoetry to destabilise anthropocentric definitions of “voice” and “listening”, asking how poetry might shift our perception of sound to that beyond the limits of human experience. Drawing from ecoacoustics, this essay argues that Gander’s work invites a more embodied and multisensory form of listening that the poetry presents as ecological. Through innovating language, structure, and form, Twice Alive blurs the boundaries between human and nonhuman, visual and auditory, encouraging a deeper awareness of ecological interconnection. Not only does this essay suggest that poetry can offer readers an immersive way to reconsider the audial phenomena of natural world, but it also highlights the underexplored potential of poetics to contain sounds of new definitions.

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Keywords: Ecopoetry, Ecoacoustics, Climate, Anthropocene, Contemporary Literature

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ISSN 3069-8200