"There is a difference between our wisdom and nature's simplicity. That reflects the burden of a complex intelligence. A complex intelligence like ours is impotent compared to the intelligence of a monarch butterfly migrating from Canada to Mexico, or the intelligence of hummingbirds that have co-evolved with the flowers all along their migration route. That seems so simple; it just happens, it just unfolds."
"Climate change is a moral challenge, not simply an economic or technological problem. It is linked to social justice, because it is the poor citizens of the world who will suffer the most from our excesses."
Source: Interview with Simmons B. Buntin, www.terrain.org. September 22, 2010.
About the author
Alison Hawthorne Deming
Poet
Alison Hawthorne Deming is a poet and essayist known for her exploration of the relationship between humanity and nature, particularly in her work on environmental issues.
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"There are landscapes and species that are not going to be here a hundred years from now, fifty years from now. One gift we as writers give to the world is to bear witness to these landscapes and species as we have experienced them."
"I do think environmental writers need to be forward thinking, not just lamenting our losses. We do need to lament; in some ways it's important to be the vessels for grief for all that's being lost on our planet. But we also need to be forward thinking."
"I like to use research to enlarge the poem. And sometimes a rhetorical or syntactical gesture stitches the poem along."
"If you have this deep feeling of empathy for the natural world, you feel it so profoundly. It's almost a religious experience. I feel that I could never really say the depth of feeling or connection I feel to the natural world, which has made me."
"It's extremely important that, as writers, we give a voice to those who don't have voices, including the other animals that we share the planet with and the places that are endangered or being lost."